Here are the liner notes old records came with.
Beauty Here
The title was meant to be ironic after the “ if you stumble, stumble lightly:” . The original; title was “fall down hard“ , but the songs were too poppy and nothing was falling. The lyrics were falling, but, they were hid inside pretty hooks and a lot of background vocal. Fall down hard , will be the next one. The answer to the beauty that never showed up.
Molly Eats The Hammer…. Was written in Springdale Utah. It’s nothing but rock and desert out there. I spent six month taking the three hour trip back and forth to Las Vegas on weekdays off. Most of those trips were easily settled with an hour drive to Mesquite NV. instead. It was all night slot machines, blackjack tables, free booze and 20 dollar hotel rooms that keep silly boys entertained. The time in the park we kept things together. Those nights when the lights of the desert blinds a boy’s eyes we wanted to stay awake to see it all. The Beatles lied about Lucy In the Sky with diamonds. I have nothing to hide.
Beauty Here…… The hazy needle skyline was Seattle. It was a haze. I met XXXX there, she had a taste for the pleasures I once gave up miles away on the east coast. It was hazy and winter. I lived on the other side of Pudget Sound and would wait to take the ferry across every day after work. I had city life and Kitsap life. XXXX stayed with the city life. She found the beauty over there. Her beauty is still here.
Maybe This Time…..Frederick, MD I wrote this while living above a bar, the roof of the bar was my porch Annabelle told me all my songs are depressing and no one will buy songs like that. So I wrote an uplifting song. I wrote it towards myself. I didn’t believe in it either, so it makes for a good song.
Gypsies Or Ramblers…… I was sitting at The Old Towne Tavern in my hometown of Frederick, MD with Kate. We met in Wyoming, hung out in Seattle, but were both from the same state. We grew up 20 miles apart and finally were together in our hometown local bar , We had both been traveling for years to find ourselves together in the place we started. She asked me + “so are we gypsies or are we ramblers?” They called last call . I went back to Wyoming , she went to Oregon. I never got to lift her shirt enough. And I’ve never set foot in that bar again. We are still best of friends and I love her dearly.
Memory Babe…….I got back to Massachusetts and needed to write something with fucked up guitar changes. I had too much country and punk song were getting boring. I loved Leonard Cohen and Lou Reed and Jack Kerouac. Jack Kerouac was called Memory Babe. I told OOOO it was about her. But it wasn’t about her as much as it was for her and her inspirations she gave me with the literature we read together. If anything ,it is a mean song that is not meant for anyone but myself. Whoever it was for, it was meant out of love, when I find you I will throw roses at your feet.
Cocaine, Miami…. Written in Key Largo Florida. I had to listen to Jimmy Buffet everyday of my life. I didn’t want this song on the record but it is so easy and fun.
Wagon/Trailer….. Raleigh NC….. I didn’t live in a trailer at the time but it felt like it. I did a round of whiskey and she did leave me. Once again.
Hasta Luego Manuela Maria Ramirez II……. She is from Columbia, I met her one night and she asked me to play her a song. I faked some shit on the guitar, that was the first one , recorded on one take I recorded it on “if you stumble, stumble lightly. I was making Beauty Here and she called me and asked me where her new song was. This is it . One take. Manuela, if I make thirty record I will always have a song for you.
Why Wyoming……of course written in Wyoming, Jackson Hole WY. I repeat lyrics on purpose , only to drive it into the heads of everyone on the other coasts. I have been many places, until I seen Wyoming, the quiet, the simple , yet brilliant humans that are in that part of the country. It is a place to hide, it is a place to get away from all the false business of trying to do so much for no reasons. Nature, space , mountains in the distants…space.
Arms (West Seattle Junction) ....Seattle again The 57 was the bus that went across the bridge to West Seattle. Written there in XXXX’s Arms . The beauty over there that is no longer here.
Annabelle….. Written in Northampton , MA… 15 years ago, recorded many times. Annabelle is with me and has always been with me. Still in the blindspot, but there with me.
The recording process.......
The songs were written in many places over many years. The recording was done by an awesome friend and a great engineer Chris Croteau . We recorded it in his house in Hatfield Mass. The recording process took us 3 years. We did all live basic tracks with a full band in early 1996. I would come into town and do a few vocal tracks on the songs. Chris would send me mixes to Wyoming or Florida. I was always off somewhere. He would get an idea and Kevin would come in some nights and sing a background track and Chris would add that in . Amy would come in one night and then he’d send me that version. This went on the entire time. I don’t think there is a full song completed that I was at the session. I think that distance is part of how the songs were written and how they came out to be the way they are. If it weren’t for Chris’s persistence this recording would have never been completed. I thank him. I thank everyone who played on the record. Just when we thought it was finished, Joe Boyle comes in and adds killer guitar to many of the open space tracks. Dave Durst is a human metronome, Jim Joe Greedy is the best bass player to walk the earth, and Tom Sturm is the only person who can play every guitar lick that’s in my head that I can’t do ( he just knows what I’m thinking) . Scott (Bow,Bow) mushrooms aside, right time right place. Amy, Heather, Carrie, Steve………. Keep my voice sounding close. That’s the in and out of the recording
Eddie Holly Northampton, MA
September 2009