Starlight Troubadours

The Terrapin Tune
rico story (music and lyrics)

“ Hey , how’s it going ? “ . I knew that my tone of voice would sound familiar to this person at the other end, but that didn’t prevent him from half asking the obvious question anyways ; “ Jon ? “ “ Hey , what do ya say ? “ . “ It ‘s good , i replied . “ A couple of exchanges later i tossed in the comment ; “ I’m out in illinois , and i’m planning on driving back to haverford for the holidays …. i was thinking that if you were around , you could stop bye’ for a few days and we could lay down some tracks for this song that i’d like to record … “ “ Whatcha got for equipment ? “ Almost at the end of the conversation Dave remarks ; “ That sound’s great . “ “ O . K . , we’ll go semi multi – track to keep the live feel . “ “ You can scratch on rhythm and do vocs , i’ll do bass and guitar , you handle the horns , and we’ll get Chris for the percussion .
“ Land of lincoln over to the keystone ; have – a - lincoln , have – a - ford …. Nice drive on the interstate , a little two warm for december as eye remember …. Momo asleep on top of the dashboard up against the windshield , polo standing up on hind feet with paws on the passenger door watching the river flow ….. i’m watching the wheels go around , and reflecting on sky , jams , parties , and one of those infinite nights in a warm fragrant , magical and mystical pennsylvania springtime …. “ I guess it was early one morning , that caught me on round again pond ….. “
Del – aware vall - ee de – cember , have – a - ford crossing o – ver from land o’ lincoln , fender jazz , ’55 tele , bach bone , couesnon bari , conga , cow bell , and let me tell U sum thing ….. “ Yo bro , it’s great to see ya .” “ How was the drive ? “ “ Nice , ran into a rain storm over bye’ the burg , but it was All in good fun . “ “ Even caught a little bit lightning , and two think of it - , - it looks like there might even be sum more of that o – ver here “ ….. Eddie laughed ; “ Yeah , a little bit of lightning’s nice every once in a while . “ Let me get you a brew while you set up , you gonna record in the front hall ? “ “ Yeah , the background acoustics should be nice and live with that open space and pine wood floor , but we’re still going to close mike everything and then gate the signal to get good separation and a clean sound . “
Nice set up , that will stand up and stand out in a stone house with a Victorian porch , chestnut trimming bye’ an o – pen fire space , and two cats in the hyard – wood stair – way stare – ring at the hazy lightning digital rig , recording tunes of terrapin yore’ ….. and one old score …. “ Let’s go for the live feel …. Get as close as we can given the time constraint …. See if we can catch the right grove , the right mood , Just enough to hit window on the basic tracks , and we can always clean it up on the back end at post time …. The scratch sounds good , but it’s like a smooth ballad …. What if we amp it up , i mean more of jazzed , swing , full effect almost pumped dixie – land retro funk with everything coming out and around more all at once and still all together in sync at the same time? ... They went to a spirit party , looking for a chamberlain man….