Steve is credited with chorus rescue on Diamond Princess.
Chorus Rescue?
Yes, well… a good while back I had an idea for a song, called Diamond Princess, one scruff’s protest against high-maintenance women, suggesting that instead of trying to live up to their expectations, they should ‘live down’ to his. I had a strange chord progression that seemed to work, but the melody was a bit repetitive. Cue Steve.
Its very simple. Steve Vincent writes great songs. Once he left a pile of his writings in an unmarked envelope in my mum’s house. She found it and asked if she could throw it out (mid-Spring Cleaning), and as I had no idea what it was, opened it to find about 200 sheets of A4 covered in superb funky lyrical ideas. She didn’t get to throw it out, and I hope to use some of them in future if Steve doesn’t.
I recorded some of his stuff back in 1997 and again, rough as a badger’s arse in 1999. Everyone loved both recordings, but he was too busy at university to really commit to music, which although a shame in a lot of ways, means that when he plays, he enjoys it, and lives every note, whether as himself or as one of his strange personas – such as the legendary ‘Professor Weirdnebeard’. I’m quite sure his musical exploits are far from over – maybe he’ll let me put up a track on this site… I’ll ask nicely. Its just unfair on the populus at large to deny them his music.
Anyway, I was struggling with ‘Diamond Princess’. He popped into my dad’s house down by the sea in my home town for a cup of tea, and I played him the idea. He liked it, and immediately came back with the second line of melody and another couple of lyrical ideas. From there, in much the same way as ‘Happytown’ after my dad had suggested a line, the rest flowed easily and the tea tasted all the better. The chorus now reads:
You’ve got to change your rules if you want to be with me
You’ve got to lose your cool if you want to be with me
You’ve got to trash all your jewels…
If you want to be with me, you’d be such a fool
So that’s what I mean by Chorus Rescue. Despite the fact that that is the only bit Steve contributed to, the song would never have existed without him, so I declare him co-writer extraordinaire. Sometimes the missing line is more important than the rest of the lyrics put together. I like the track a lot from a lyrical point of view and the storyboard for the video is fantastic!! So much to do, so much to do…