A Year In Heaven

Little known fact: A Year in Heaven was recorded with two kick drums. One was miked and played, the other only miked.

Neil Peart aside, there are a few things I really like about this song. Firstly, the nine-part chorus. This was made by singing every note in a scale and then muting certain ones at certain times, thereby making our own chords during mix down. It was such a great idea, I took a note of it for when I make my own award-winning record some day.

Secondly, if you're listening through headphones, or on a very expensive and sensitive stereo, you'll hear our bass clouds during the middle section. Philip tracked some random drone notes, which we then dropped about seventy octaves until it was nothing but a heart-palpitating UFO-hover-pattern sound that spills out of your speakers like warm Play-doh.

Little known fact: A Year in Heaven was tracked on Eric's birthday.

In celebration of this, we only tracked for half a day and then hit the local watering hole to meet up with Mrs. Fridmann and the guys in Mogwai for drinky treats. BJ's, as it is known, is a little place on the main drag of the two-stoplight Main Street of Fredonia, NY. We went there a number of times during the recording-making, and Nic actually left his Mai Tai-flavored calling card on the sidewalk outside before crashing out early in the van and waking up to a splitting headache no amount of coffee would cure.

Little known fact: A Year in Heaven references the Civil War, doomed aviators, suicidal Golden Era actresses, and the Allman Brothers, among other things.

I've often fantasized that if our budget were endless, I'd want to shoot a video for every song on the album. I have treatments written for them all, but unfortunately I don't think another video is in our cards anytime soon. But just pretending that one were, I've always seen Heaven as a visual feast of Moulin Rouge proportions. Imagine, if you will, when the chorus kicks in and you see a wide overhead shot of several dozen atrociously dressed singers, lifted straight from Ziegfeld Follies It really is a condensed three part play (that doesn't really exist), so, in theory, it could be very easy to storyboard. Now I just need a high school drama club to help me flesh it out…



Any questions??
Me too,
Jonathon Christopher Newby of Brazil