In fact, it's kind of refreshing to my ears to hear those old simple country rock fills. It's right out front in the mix too.

I can't imagine what else could be done with those songs that could do them more justice than what Ben has done. And it does remind me a lot of Harvest, which had the same growing effect on me.

Here's some of it, reflecting what Chris posted:

quote:

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AT ANY POINT WERE YOU THINKING, "THIS MIGHT BE MY LAST SONG," AND IF SO, DID YOU WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT ONE WAS, YOU KNOW, REALLY GOOD?

I was thinking about things like that, and it's kind of too bad that people know about this, because it's like, "The only way he could make a good album is if he had an aneurysm," or something. I feel a little funny about it, because I know I would have made an album anyway, and I don't feel like I'm slowing down, but these things happen. Yeah, there's a lot of reflection. [Grudgingly] It affected all the songs.

YOU WERE OBVIOUSLY WORKING FAST, BUT SONGS LIKE FALLING OFF THE FACE OF THE EARTH HAVE BOTH URGENCY AND CLARITY. DID YOU HAVE TIME TO ACTUALLY CRAFT LYRICS?

Most things just came pouring out, but that song's unique because a lot of it came from a voice-mail message. A friend of mine called, knowing I was going through this, and left me a voice mail that was, "Thinking about you--just want to tell you that you mean a lot to me," that kind of stuff. So I wrote it all down and made up this kind of bass-ackwards melody. With songwriting, the key thing is not to have any preconceptions, to be wide open and never worry about whether it's cool or not. Use whatever you can, and worry about cool after you finish the record.

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Highly recommended reading.

Steinar

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www.gregertsen.com

[This message was edited by Steinar Gregertsen on 23 October 2005 at 08:46 AM.]