“It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry” from Highway 61 Revisited, 1965. (Bob Dylan, 60 Minutes Interview with Ed Bradley, 2004.) BD: It just came. It came from… was like a… right out of that wellspring of creativity, I would think, you know.EB: Do you ever look back at the […]
Category: Covers
Categories
Beck Lost Cause
Mike Vocals, guitar and production
Tom Bass
Norb Jost Harmonica
Lou Jost Backing vocal
Caitlin Keyboard improvisation
Mike Reading, production of the track
Vocals, guitar Kathee
Guitar Mike
Violin Stephanie (track added later from PA)
Sometime in the early days of the pandemic of 2020, when contagion and disaster seemed immanent possibilities, we separated from each other and our daily routines. The sense of the familiar vanished and all of us found ourselves in some kind of alienated space. I sat alone one night in April in The Maltshop (my home studio) thinking about an unsettled and lonely future.
Like Bob Dylan, “I was thinking of a series of dreams.” I had been reminiscing about the many classes I have taught and the many students I have known as a series of dreams. It seemed like an appropriate metaphor to me. However, it is always a slippery business to translate the images and sensations of dreams into words, syntax and story. Each of these elements imposes a world-view and an interpretation on what Freud called “the royal road to the unconscious.”
Mike Opitz: lead vocal, guitar, digitally assisted production and final mix Caitlin Brutger: keyboard, harmony vocals, production and mixing Brian Heilman: guitar, harmony vocals, production, mixing and final mastering Tom Daddesio: bass *** The strange events of last fall’ s election season mixed with the falling leaves and seemed to conjure up nostalgic feelings in […]
Mike Opitz Song Writing and Theory Project 