Yma Sumac. A South American singer whose singing was sometimes described as birdlike. She comes from an entirely different tradition to me and I am not quite sure how I learned about her, but I got a sense that she was a determined person and committed to her art and to her vision of singing. I felt mysteriously compelled to write her into a song and this was the last track on the album ‘The Soft Animal’.
At the time our drummer was going through a big change in his life and I felt really sad about it. In fact that specific session had an air of profound melancholy. I remember going back out to the studio on my own after a break and being very upset. But in spite of this or maybe because of this, we ended up making something quite lovely. Enda played a lonely lead guitar, very haunting.
What of this? Sometimes these strong emotions can fuel something powerful. Sometimes they can derail the whole process. I’ve experienced both these things. In this case, I think it helped.
P