07.24.2010
Writing Mistral Wind
Ann,
Nancy and I wrote this song in my dingy, little apartment in Berkeley CA. one
afternoon. Our jumping off point was a simple, catchy chord progression Roger
had given us. We decided to build our chorus around that strong progression and
we were off and running. The 3 of us sat on the floor of my tiny living room,
each playing, creating musical chaos with our guitars, but as we started to
work out the main opening riff to the song, Ann and I put down our instruments
and let Nancy do the finger-work. We wanted to capture something haunting so we
began directing Nancy to try some strange notes. Soon she had fashioned out a
series of 6 notes that seemed like they were in love with each other. They just
needed to go together and we were so happy to have found them. We got the verse
progression from those notes and discovered that it led nicely into our new
chorus. We now had our beginning blue print for the song.
Meanwhile,
we'd been looking for a something to write about. Ann and Nancy had recently
come off a 9 month tour of the US and they were trying to think of something
they'd experienced that was worthy of building a song around. After "Love
Alive" - which features a verse about the transcendent experience being on
stage - we all agreed that songs about road life are boring and non-relatable
and didn't want to write anymore. Who wants to hear about the French fries in
Kansas or the men's locker rooms that served as backstage areas at some of the
gigs? And I had completely NOTHING to offer since I was in grad school studying
German lit. Anybody in the mood to hear a depressing song inspired by Kafka? As
we sat there, struggling to find just the right concept for our new song,
someone said, "this is like being in a sailboat on a windless day, waiting for
the wind to rise so you can move on." I started riffing about the Mistral Wind
in Europe and some of the legends associated with it. Seemed like the Mistral
Wind could represent inspiration. We came up with the idea that we were sailors
calling, crying, begging for the wind to come. Ann had the idea to link the concept
with a kind of longing for a lover. So: it was to be a song about passion!
Artistic passion and passionate love, all together in one song. Yeah, back in the 70's you could write
songs with dramatic, lofty goals. Sometimes, they actually worked!
Once
we had all the elements in place, we could jump in and assemble our big
monument. That's what you can't wait for when you're writing a song: the fun part, the incredible, joyful,
cool part, as things start to come together.
I
remember us trying to figure out how to build the song, make it bigger and
bigger, turn on even more intensity.
Nancy said to Ann "You could always just go up an octave towards the
end." And Ann nodded, "OK. Sure."
But the thing was, it was a superhuman vocal leap for an ordinary singer. (Like
me and maybe you.) But Ann just nodded. And when she got to the studio, she
pulled it off without strain, without a stretch. Effortless. I tell you, writing for her voice spoiled me.
Many years later, I tried to direct a demo singer to go up an octave in order
to increase excitement on one of my songs and she just stared back at me.
"Could you please ask me to do something POSSIBLE? Jeez, I'm not Ann Wilson!"
Mistral
Wind is one of our favorite songs we've ever written. The crew in the studio
did a fantastic job capturing the song on the record but I've always thought
the Mistral journey is best experienced live.
Back
Perth Concert
Just back from the NIB stadium, Heart absolutely fantastic, played for an hour then Def Leppard for nearly 2 hours? what the!! give me 2 hours of Ann - Nancy and the band any day, going to Adelaide and Melbourne to see the girls again, would I like like to meet and great them? I would be in inconsolable.
Posted by 2011-10-18 01:53:45.