Easter Song From Downtime
I can only think of 1 Easter song in my collection, and it’s a song that never made it to completion.
Y’all may remember a little diddy Downtime cooked up for Alex and I’s first Christmas show as It’s Late. The tune, Santa Is Your Daddy, was better than great but I’ll talk about that another time. While I’m thinking about it, I need to post the original demo for It’s Late. Anyway…
For my 30th birthday my homey’s engineered giving me my first mixing board and a microphone. And what good is gear if you don’t use it right? To paraphrase ‘Spies Like Us’, “A microphone unused is a useless microphone”. Further, Cleez had just acquired his mighty Modulus and Shag had been playing drums for around 6 months (I think) so not even a month later moves were made to create another holiday classic. The gang had joked about making another song after the success of the ‘Santa’ sessions and the idea came about to do one about Easter since that holiday was around the corner. Cleez was the mastermind of ‘Operation: Bunnycrime’ and thought that a band configuration should be: him on bass, Shag on drums, Wheels singing and playing whatever he wanted to, Alex on keyboards (which he had recently acquired), and Bill Keller on guitar. I think Tom mentioned bringing in a trained horn player too – Steve maybe? This session occurred in my living room.
Cutting short a long story about being responsible adults, the song didn’t get completed. But what we do have is a wonderful sketch of what could have been. Cleez and Shag thought it could be a song sung from the perspective of a kid that got shafted by the Easter Bunny. I fantasized that finished lyrics would have some reference to Red Hot Chili Peppers tune ‘Funky Crime’. Cleez came up with the main riff and the intro lyrics, Shag laid down a groove, and my sole songwriting contribution ever* is the recorder played during the intro.
Enjoy Take 1 and Take 2 of the song sketch for Bunnycrime.
ps. I know I’ve got the e-mail chain on this somewhere, and let me plug in this tidbit of Cleez warming up.
*save for a potty song I conceived for Porter, now used for Jessie.