Heather Nights
Let's get granular
Let me break down the song “Heather Nights” for you.
At some point along the line, I got it in my head that I wanted to be regarded as “proper” songwriter and not just a rapper. I don’t know what poisoned me in this way. I guess it was a bunch of factors. If I could go back in time, I’d shake myself. It’s so wack. Anyway. I started thinking about vocal melody. “Heather Nights” was my first and maybe my best attempt at writing a quasi-melodic song.
There are two versions of “Heather Nights”. I’m not entirely sure why I re-recorded it now. The first version (with the melodic vocals) (embedded above) is the best version. I recorded it in my apartment in Paris. The second version was recorded in a studio which meant there were other people around and I didn’t feel comfortable enough to attempt to hit the notes. So instead, I delivered the vocals in this weird flat tone and I think it sounds terrible now. My “singing” on the original version is far from good but I think it has a certain charm to it and I think the melody actually brings something to the song, for as iffy as the whole endeavor is.
As I recall, the seed of the song was the two little melodies I came up with - one for the verses, one for the chorus. I was on tour in France and my opening act was my old friend Sarah Slean. She’s a great songwriter and a trained musician. Embarrassing as it was, I sang my little melodies for her and she helped work out the chords on her piano. Once I had that, I started writing the lyrics.
The title of the song refers to a person from the town where I grew up named Heather Knight. She’s three or four years older than me. There’s no high school in my old town. So after she went off to high school, I never saw her again. I suppose that means that the last time I saw her, I would have been 11 or 12 years old. I never knew her but I was fascinated by her. I think I thought of her as the only interesting person in Mt. Uniacke. She was a punk rocker with a look that scared the crap out of most people. I thought she was cool. We’ll come back to Heather in a bit.
I want to break down some of the lyrics, line by line…
“Sepia tone Saturday, I seen a man drown…” There are a lot of lakes in Mt. Uniacke (see above). One day, I was out on one such lake with my cousin Shane. We were canoeing. Or it might have been a pedal-boat. We saw a man drowning. We raced over to him and saved him. We pulled him out of the water and took him home. Once we got to the shore, he walked off without saying anything.
“There’s gold in them there hills…” As I chronicled here before, Mt. Uniacke was originally settled as a gold mining town. The idea that there were old abandoned gold mines back in the woods was an unending source of fascination for me and my friends when we were growing up. Of course, we always held onto hope that there was still some gold in the ground and that we might strike it rich. We went looking almost every weekend. Read more:
https://notyourgrandfathersmining.ca/uniacke
“Bushweed porn stash. Waist-high deep snow…” My old friend Shawn Mussolino used to steal his dad’s porno mags and hide them in the bushes. Once in a while, we’d go into those bushes and do some browsing. I have a million stories about Shawn. We called him “Muzz”. He was a character. I often wonder where he is now and how he’s doing. I miss him. As for the snow… As the name would suggest, Mt. Uniacke is of a higher elevation than the surrounding areas in Hants County, Nova Scotia. So in the winter, we’d get a lot of snow. My friends and I built a lot of forts.
“Skull and crossbones. Railroad peep show…” One day, this girl named Tina told me and my friend Chris to meet her on the railroad tracks after school. We did. We walked a ways until we were out of sight of the world. When we stopped, Tina took off all her clothes and then put them back on again as Chris and I watched from about 20 feet away. Not a word was spoken the whole time. I don’t even think Chris and I discussed it after parting ways with Tina. It was my first time seeing a girl’s exposed bathing suit areas in real life. Again, I was probably around 11 or 12 at the time. Tina was a few years older. Kids are so weird.
“Some say the next door neighbor once killed a guy…” The rumor was, the boyfriend of the mom of one of my friends killed a guy. I remember that part of the story was that it was some sort of hate-inspired attack. This friend of mine was super-into the Fat Boys.
“Too many funerals. Names on the guest list…” In more recent years, I was playing a show in Halifax. I was thrilled to find out that my old music teacher and English teacher from the school in Mt. Uniacke were there (they’re married). We chatted for a bit before the show. I mentioned to them that as I got older, I came to realize how unusual it was that so many kids I knew when I was growing up killed themselves (like, when were kids). My old teachers shook their heads and said, “it’s still like that out there (meaning: in Mt. Uniacke).
“Homemade weaponry. The natives are restless…” There were a couple times when large numbers of kids in Mt. Uniacke split into two armies that went to war against each other. Some kind of madness took hold of us. We’d make nunchucks and hammer spikes through baseball bats. When it came time to fight, it was mostly rock throwing. We’d fight for a week and then it would just be over.
“Hangman’s Lake - Hell’s Angel’s HQ…” Like I said, lots of lakes in Mt. Uniacke. My friend Drew lived in a house on one of the lakes. The property next to his was some sort of Hell’s Angel’s hangout. You could hear them partying and whooping it up sometimes. There was always something menacing about it.
“Roger Stevens, I still hate you…” Here, I’m actually referring to Steve Rogers, who was a pitcher for the Montreal Expos. He gave up a home run to Rick Monday of the Dodgers that effectively knocked the Expos out of the 1981 playoffs. I was crushed and never forgave Steve Rogers for it. I actually saw him face-to-face in Montreal in 1984. Instead of asking for his autograph, I gave him the cold shoulder.
“Far away, coyote sings the blues…” From my house, I could often hear coyote (or wolves?) howling in the distant woods. It’s such a forlorn sound.
“The longest train I ever saw. Abandoned building. Rooster claw…” I mentioned the railroad tracks. Sometimes you’d see a doozy of a long train. Sometimes I threw rocks at them as they went by because I was an idiot (I’m still an idiot).
There was an abandoned army base in Mt. Uniacke. They’ve developed the land since my day. Me and my friends would go trespassing/exploring in there sometimes. I don’t know for sure if it’s true but I once heard that a guy I played baseball with hid the body of a guy he killed in there.
As for the rooster claw… One day, this guy Rupert brought the foot he chopped off a chicken or rooster into school for show-and-tell. The ligaments were sticking out and when he’d pull them, the claw would close. Pretty cool.
“Chainsaw violence. Pretty dresses…” Again - maybe this was just part of local folklore… I used to know a guy named [redacted]. One day it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen him in a long time. I asked someone (one of my cousins, maybe), “what ever happened to [redacted]?” I was told that the last time he was seen, he was being chased into the woods by the guy who used to be the school bully who was armed with a running chainsaw! Jesus Christ.
As for the production of the song, there’s one cool detail I can tell you about. I wanted the beat to sound like it was being played by brushes rather than sticks. But I was using samples and not actual drums. So to get the sound I wanted, I sampled cue burn off an old record. Pretty cool! It worked like a charm. It came out sounding exactly like I wanted it to. My friend Charles played the guitar and did the whistling part.
Now get this - ten years ago or so, I was playing a show in Halifax (not the show my old teachers attended). A day or two later, I received a message from Anita - the older sister of my childhood friend, Mark. She told me she was at the show. I thought that was nice and told her she should have said hello. But then she told me that she brought a friend along… Heather Knight! She was there! And I played “Heather Nights” that night. She heard it! And then another few days later, she and I connected online. We messaged each other regularly and got to know one another. This was so exciting to me because in my mind, she’s a legend - kinda like a famous person. And getting to know her didn’t disappoint. She’s as interesting a person as I always imagined her to be.
New album update:
Holy crap - right after the last post, things took off. Remember how in that post I said that I was managing to write about half a verse per day? Well, that same afternoon, I snapped off a whole song. And then the flood gates opened. I wrote lyrics for two songs the next day. I’ve written lyrics for at least one whole song every day since. As I’m writing this, I only have two more to go. I figure that after those last two are knocked off, I’ll spend a few days rehearsing and then I’ll start recording vocals on the weekend.
I’m super-stoked about what I have so far. As was the case with King Of Drums, I’m messing with a lot of different flows and whatnot. The rapping on a few songs is super—extra-technical (the complexity of the beats necessitates it). I really feel like I’ve raised the bar but you’ll be the judge of that. I’ve made it a point this time to give each song a proper title. I’m going to go out on a limb here and make an early prediction that a song called “A Gift From The Sky” will be a lot of people’s favorite.
After I record the vocals, I’ll have to add all the final details, which will mostly be turntable stuff. I figure that will take a week or two at the most. If I can manage to stay on track, I expect to have a finished album by St. Patrick’s Day. I’m not 100% sure what happens after that but I’ll get this thing to you as fast as I can. I still have to figure out some kind of cover art. I can’t wait for you to hear it.
I do have a title for the album but I’m going to sit on that for a bit.
Here’s the dilemma I’m wrestling with right now: I mixed King Of Drums myself. I know the mix is far from perfect. I don’t care about that as much as some people do. I’m okay with things being a bit lo-fi. For me, it’s the music that counts. Mixing this new album is going to be trickier because of some of the production choices I’ve made. Part of me would like to either pay someone who knows what they’re doing to mix the record or at least pay for some time in a halfways proper studio and mix it myself there. But I have no money. I’m getting hit with this inflation shit like everyone else. Shit’s been feeling borderline scary. If I can figure something out, I’ll get it done right. Otherwise, I’m going to have to do myself again. The best listening environment I have access to is in my car. I tried to figure out a way to mix King Of Drums in the car but I couldn’t crack it. Maybe I’ll try again. Mix-wise, did you think King Of Drums sounded like shit? I know the bass was a little too heavy on a song or two. Anyway. Just know that I’ll do my very best within my means to deliver the best-sounding album possible. And I apologize in advance if it sounds a little rough. But I can pretty much promise that you’ll be psyched on the music, especially if you enjoyed King Of Drums and are waiting to see how I build off that. I’m friggin’ pumped. I’ve been pushing myself hard and I think I’ve knocked out every challenge I’ve given myself so far.
For the next post, I’m thinking of getting granular on the song “Phil”. Maybe “Blood Of A Young Wolf”.
Until then.