An Interview with George (1975)

 An Interview with George

The Write Thing

October/November 1975

Q:  The first thing to ask about the album is the title. Where did you get the idea for that?

 George: Er, I was with one of the guys who played bass on some of the tracks. He was just sitting with me as I was overdubbing something, and we were talking about something, I don't know, and he said "texture", and at the same time I said "extra", and that was it. It just became the title. You know, the words "extra texture, read all about it" seemed funny at the time. In fact, it was going to be called, "Oh, not him again", which is actually the subtitle.

Q: Who are the musicians you've worked with on this album?

George: The basic musicians, the ones who played on most tracks, are Jim Keltner on drums, and Klaus Vormann played bass on a few of the tracks. And this other guy, Paul Stallworth, played bass on some of the other tracks. I played bass and synthesizer on a few, and then this piano player who is quite new around LA In fact, he's from Vancouver, a guy called David Foster, a very young guy. He did the string arrangements, and he is also in another band with Jim Keltner and the bass player Paul called Attitudes. Leon played piano on one old track and one new track. The tracks I have horns, there are two tracks. That's Tommy Scott and Chuck Finley playing two parts each, and Gary Wright plays organ and various keyboard things. 

    There's this old track called "You", and I actually did the basic track around 1971, and that's one with Leon, Carl Radle and Jim Gordon.

Q:  That's the one you've chosen for the single?

 George:  Yes, it just seemed to be the most instant. Most people in California thought it was most obvious. So that's the one. It will be the first one. I originally wrote it when I was working with Phil Spector around the All Things Must Pass period. And we were trying to do an album with Ronnie. I wrote it particularly for her and the Ronette sort of flavor. And suddenly, I remembered I had this track, and it was such a good backing track, so I decided to resurrect it and finish it off. 

    The song was so high.. My voice has been dropping over the years, and I realized I put it up about three tones for Ronnie to sing, and it was really high for me to sing.

Q: The second song is called "The Answers at the End", and it keeps saying, "We hurt the ones we love. We hurt the ones we need."

 George: Yes, it's like the modern version of "You Only Hurt the Ones You Love, the ones you shouldn't hurt at all." It actually came from this Vietonan thing written on the wall of my house. In fact, I get a lot of songs off the wall. It was a poem, the first verse, and it stuck in my mind, and always seemed like a song.

Q:  "This Guitar Can't Keep From Crying" sounds something like, "While My Guitar."

 George:  Yes, it's "the son of..."  I decided to write that song because of the popularity of "While My Guitar."  It was really just a cheap excuse to play a bit of guitar. "Guitar Gently Weeps" was, in fact, more popular than I realized, and so I thought I'd write another one, "the son of..."

Q: It also seems to have more of a dance beat than some of the other songs.

 George:  "Yeah, that's Jim Keltner. He's amazing in what he doesn't do. He's really great at leaving space. And that one, really, all he does is the back beat on the snare and the tom toms at the same time. And he leaves a lot of gaps, but it's a nice dance tune. 

Q: You've done a song called "Ooh Baby", and I'm told this is to Smokey Robinson, who did "Ooh Baby, Baby."

 George: Over 10 years or so, I just realized that one of my favorite singers and songwriters has been Smokey Robinson. He's been, for my taste, one of the most consistent. He's written so many fantastic tunes, and although I'm not anywhere in his league as a singer, the song always reminds me of that Smokey type mood, and so I dedicated it to him. 

Q: The song that finishes the side is called "World of Stone."

George:  Yes, I wrote that a couple of years ago. I only just got around to recording it. There's not much of a story to it. 

Q: There's a line that says, "so far away from home".

 George: Yeah, it's a wise man. "You won't be able to follow the likes of me in this world made of stone." It's really down to saying that everybody has their own opinion and right to be, that's really all. It's a nice melody. 

Q: The second side starts with literally "A Bit More of You." And then we go into what is one of my favorite songs, "Can't Stop Thinking About You."

 George:  I wrote that one at Christmastime two years ago. I was sitting around the log fire. The song I could hear somebody like Joe Cocker singing. It's also very commercial. The middle part kills me. I have this tendency to write dramatic or melodramatic melodies. And this one was like a song on Material World, which always makes you think it should be sung by somebody like Al Jolson or Mario Lanza. It's a funny, interesting melody.

Q:  The vocal on this reminds me a little of some of Bob Dylan's things. 

George: On that track?

Q: At the beginning. 

George:  Oh yes, that's my impersonation of John Lennon. Yeah, it was hard to sing that first chorus. I can tell you.

Q: "Tired of Midnight Blue" comes at a bit of a funny time, because there's just been a hit by Melissa Manchester. 

George: Well, I wrote this song. Sometimes I just think of titles and write them down on a bit of paper, and sometimes you get around to writing a song about it. I thought "Midnight Blue" was a good title, so I wrote the song. About three weeks after we recorded it. Melissa Manchester's came out, and so this is now "Tired of Midnight Blue."

     It's a story of, you know, those nights when you go out and wish you hadn't. This track has got Leon Russell on piano. Incidentally, fantastic.

Q:  I noticed on this part of the LP and on, "Ooh, Baby," there's a mellow feel, yeah, and also, there's a lot of space.

Q: Space says there isn't much going on. In fact, I deliberately just left the spaces because most people can imagine their own guitar parts.

Q: This is a change from "Ding Dong"  as well as your Specter days.

 George:  Yeah. Well, sometimes, some people don't like a lot of things going on. If you do it simple, they'll want to hear the big sound. And if you do a big sound, they'll want it simple. I mean, ideally, sometime I'll get around to doing an album with no backing, just with an acoustic guitar. 

Q: We now get to a song called "Gray Cloudy Lies"

 George:  That's one of those depressing four o'clock in the morning sort of songs. I don't know where these songs come from half the time. That one was a piano song. Sometimes I write on the piano. I can't play the piano, you see, so I'll play certain chords on the piano, which I wouldn't bother with on the guitar, because I knew them too well, but they always sound different on the piano. This one is mainly the rhythm thing about it, which got me, it tends to miss beats every so often. I think it was just one of those songs after talking for a bit, it's nice to be quiet. 

Q:  The last track, I just couldn't understand the lines. 

George: No, even when they're written down, you can't understand them. It's the craziest song, both lyrically and musically. And the story on this. Well, the English people may know more about Legs than Americans; it's actually Legs Larry Smith, who was the drummer with the Bozo Dog Doo Da Band. And he's a very nice person who's very eccentric, and I'm very partial to eccentrics. 

    Anyway, I met him Christmas two years ago. I had this piano by the fire, and I just met Larry.  He kept coming and going, and he just amazed me with all the things he was saying. So I decided to write a song about him. The lyrics are just crazy, just like Larry. Actually, he sings the first part of each bridge.

Q:  Did you deliberately mix this track so that it's hard to understand?

 George: Well, Larry, when I got him to sing the bridge, I've never seen him since then, incidentally, so I told him I got this song. It was only the basic track at that time, and I wanted him to sing these lines, so I gave him the words, and he only did two takes of each bit, and then in the solo, and at the end, he just talks and says all these silly jokes. Listening to this dialogue over and over, it just gets a bit boring once you've heard the jokes all of time. So I decided to put them both in at one time and have them down so that people will have to strain with headphones to hear what it is,