User:PianoUpMyNose/Songs

= To Kingdom Come = "To Kingdom Come" is a song by the Canadian-American rock band the Band from their 1968 debut album Music From Big Pink.

Recording
"To Kingdom Come" is one of the only songs by the Band to feature a lead vocal from Robertson. He would not contribute another until "Knockin' Lost John" on 1977's Islands.

Background
Brown wrote "White Room" in the months before forming his partnership with Cream. He was living in a small flat on Baker Street next to a fire station and had come close to a nervous breakdown due to the constant alarms as well as his growing drug abuse. The lyrics reflect this, describing his "white room, with black curtains, near the station". Thompson describes the lyrics as a "claustrophobic nightmare". The piece began as an 8-page poem and was gradually cut down. Brown said the song, among others, "wouldn't have existed" without the influence of Syd Barrett introducing distinct English themes in his work with Pink Floyd. Bruce said "White Room" was one of his only deliberate attempts at writing "a successful pop song."

Recording
According to Eric Clapton biographer Michael Schumacher, "White Room" was in Cream's repertoire when they entered Atlantic Studios in New York City to record their second album Disraeli Gears, in April 1967. Dave Thompson writes it was one of the songs dismissed as "psychedelic hogwash" by Atlantic Records president Ahmet Ertegun, although that quote has also been attributed to producer Jerry Wexler. The band did not begin work on the song until after they finished the album and returned to the UK. The basic track was recorded over July–August 1967 at IBC Studios in London, featuring Bruce on bass and vocals, Clapton on guitar (using a Gibson SG), and Ginger Baker on drums.

The rest of the song's recording took place back at Atlantic. The first overdubs were added across two sets of sessions, in September and October 1967, respectively. These included Baker adding timpani and producer Felix Pappalardi contributing viola. Christopher Hjort writes some "further work" was done during a string of sessions in December, in which they also recorded Clapton's "Anyone For Tennis". A guitar overdub played through a wah-wah pedal was added by Clapton around January–February 1968 and the track was mastered in June.

Composition
"White Room" has been described as a psychedelic rock, hard rock, and blues rock song. Although it is mostly in 4/4 time, the introduction/bridge section is in the unusual 5/4 time. According to Baker, it was originally in 4/4, but he changed it and gave it a "bolero rhythm". Musicologist Melissa Ursula Dawn Goldsmith identifies this section as being in the key of G Minor, while music theory professor Nicole Biamonte writes it is "tonally ambiguous and does not clearly establish a key". The verses are in D minor and employ a D–C–B–B♭ bassline similar to a previous Cream song, "Tales of Brave Ulysses".

According to Musicnotes.com, "White Room" is in the key of D minor and is played at a "moderate rock" tempo.

"White Room" begins with a 5/4 intro that features long feedback on Clapton's guitar doubled by Papparlardi's viola. Baker claimed that it was originally in 4/4, but he changed it to have a more bolero feel. The song employs a D–C–B–B♭ bassline similar to a previous Cream song, "Tales of Brave Ulysses". Bruce later used a riff from the song as the basis of the song "Life on Earth" from his 1989 solo album A Question of Time.

Release
Wheels of Fire was released on 9 August 1968, with "White Room" as its opening track. The song was released as a single on 3 October, with Baker and Mike Taylor's "Those Were the Days" as the B-side.

"White Room" was Cream's last single before breaking up, although it was later released the UK as their first single after breaking up.

Reception
The song quickly followed "Sunshine of Your Love" up the charts. New Musical Express wrote of the song: "Fuzzy and raucous [...] with wowing guitar and walloping beat. As ever, the boys dispense a gripping, electrifying sound".

Legacy
Welch calls the song "Cream's studio masterpiece."

Personnel
Musician credits according to the Wheels of Fire liner notes. Production and engineering credits according to Marc Roberty and Chris Welch.

Cream


 * Jack Bruce &#x2013; bass, vocals
 * Eric Clapton &#x2013; guitar
 * Ginger Baker &#x2013; drums, timpani

Additional personnel


 * Felix Pappalardi &#x2013; production, viola
 * Adrian Barber &#x2013; engineering
 * Tom Dowd &#x2013; engineering

Other versions
The song was the opening number of Cream's farewell concert. It was played on their reunion tour. Another live recording, from 4 October 1968 in Oakland, was released on Live Cream Volume II.

Clapton and Bruce rerecorded the song for the latter's Shadows in the Air album. Bruce said he was "thrilled by" the version and remarked, "I think the intro almost sounds African, a dusty village in Africa somewhere."

In 1979, Hugh Cornwell of the Stranglers and Robert Williams of Captain Beefheart's Magic Band released a cover as a single and later on the album Nosferatu.

Background and development
Arthur Lee wrote "7 and 7 Is" at the Colonial Apartments on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, where he had been living with several other members of Love. The song was inspired by his high school girlfriend Anita "Pretty" Billings, with whom he shared a birthday of March 7. Describing how the song came to him, Lee stated: "I was living on Sunset and woke up early one morning. The whole band was asleep. I went in the bathroom, and I wrote those words. My songs used to come to me just before dawn, I would hear them in dreams, but if I didn't get up and write them down, or if I didn't have a tape recorder to hum into, I was through. If I took for granted that I could remember it the next day—boink, it was gone."

Lee's original version of the song was a slow folk song in the style of Bob Dylan. Its arrangement developed as the band experimented in the studio. Bassist Ken Forssi had received a bass fuzz effect unit from an endorsement deal the band had signed with Vox, and Lee suggested Forssi use it on "7 and 7 Is". Lead guitarist Johnny Echols recalled: "We started playing [with it] and at first it sounded strange, but Kenny started doing this sliding bass thing with it. As we played it we could hear that this was something different, something new."

Recording
Love recorded "7 and 7 Is" on June 17 and 20, 1966, at Sunset Sound Recorders, with Jac Holzman producing and Bruce Botnick engineering. Although the fuzz bass was abandoned as it overpowered the other instruments, Forssi was able to achieve a similar sound with the feedback caused by his semi-acoustic Eko bass. Echols also used feedback, as well as extensive reverb and tremolo, saying he had wanted to use a surf guitar effect in a different context.

The sessions were infamously tumultuous due to the song's fast and intense drum part, with Lee and drummer Alban "Snoopy" Pfisterer taking turns trying to accomplish it. Pfisterer later said: "The session was a nightmare ... I had blisters on my fingers. I don't know how many times I tried to play that damn thing and it just wasn't coming out. Arthur would try it; then I'd try it." Estimates in the number of takes the song required range from 20 to 80; however, most of these were only false starts. The song took 4 hours to record according to Echols, who also claimed that the session took longer due to Holzman and Botnick objecting to the band's experimentation: "they kept stopping us, saying, 'It's feeding back!' We'd say, 'It's supposed to feed back. Although Lee claimed for years that it was himself who appeared on the final take, he would eventually admit it was Pfisterer. Echols praised it as Pfisterer's best performance.

In what has been called a "flirtation" with musique concrète, the track climaxes with the sound of an atomic explosion. Botnick said it was taken off a sound effects record and may have been a gunshot slowed down. During live performances, Echols would recreate the sound by kicking his amplifier with the reverb turned all the way up.

Music
"7 and 7 Is" mostly alternates between the keys of A major and A minor, and has a tempo of 155 beats per minute. Musicologist Michael Hicks writes that the beat's subdivisions are "strongly articulated" by the drums in a style similar to Buddy Holly's "Peggy Sue" and the Surfaris' "Wipe Out". The bass line, which uses glissandos played in octaves, is unusual in that it provides the melodic hook of the song. The band lands on the dominant chord, E minor, for the explosion, after which the song ends with a coda in C major that uses the common pop chord progression I-vi-IV-V. The coda is in time and is slower than the rest of the song, at 52 beats per minute.

Lyrics
The lyrics of "7 and 7 Is" describe Lee's domestic life as a child.

Personnel
Adapted from Keep On Shining: A Guide Through The Music Of Love & Arthur Lee by William E. Spevack:


 * Arthur Lee – vocals
 * John Echols – lead guitar
 * Bryan MacLean – rhythm guitar
 * Ken Forssi – bass
 * Alban "Snoopy" Pfisterer – drums

= Doing That Scrapyard Thing =

Background and recording
On 4 November, the band gave their final performance in the United States at the Rhode Island Auditorium. The following day, they flew to California to begin work on Goodbye at Wally Heider's Studio 3 in Hollywood.

"autobiographical" song.

Brown phoned him back with his written Beatlesque lyrics about "being on the road in Britain."

The band recorded a basic version of the song in early November, with the final version being done later in the month. The session, held at IBC Studios in central London, was produced by Felix Pappalardi with assistance from engineer Damon Lyon-Shaw. The track is notable for its use of wah-wah on Bruce's bass. Clapton played his guitar through a Leslie speaker, giving it a "swirling" effect. Pappalardi played Mellotron and Bruce added piano.

Release and reception
Polydor Records released Goodbye in February 1969, with "Doing That Scrapyard Thing" sequenced as the fifth track, between Clapton's "Badge" and Baker's "What a Bringdown".

Jack Lyne of The Kentucky Kernel felt that the song resembled the Monkees and remarked: "For Cream to sound like the Monkees is for O. J. Simpson to run with the finesse of Captain Ahab; essentially it is a waste."

Georgiy Starostin called the song a "childish electric piano disaster [...] that hardly measures up even to [Bruce's] solo records which I'm not a terrible fan of: it manages to be somewhat catchy, but at the expense of good taste."

The song was included on the 1997 Cream box set Those Were the Days. A live performance by Bruce at the Live Music Hall in Cologne on 16 October 1990 appeared in the concert film and accompanying live album Live At Rockpalast 1980, 1983 and 1990, released in 2019.

Personnel
According to the liner notes of Goodbye.


 * Eric Clapton – guitars
 * Jack Bruce – bass, piano, vocals
 * Ginger Baker – drums
 * Felix Pappalardi – Mellotron

= King Midas in Reverse =

Critical reception
"King Midas in Reverse" received near-universal acclaim from critics upon release.

= Notes =

= References =