I Called Him In Vain (Blog 4)

Simon:

Up to this point, I had been using Danny’s voice and featured sections as vignettes to link the main songs together but with only a few weeks left of principle tracking left before the mixing sessions were due to begin, I decided to try something a little more involved.

To that end, I wrote an entire track around one particular vocal performance from Danny, co-opting one of my other big influences on the album (Vangelis) into the writing process. For me the music of Vangelis has always occupied that of wide open spaces and while the song itself is supposed to take place in that moment of shock after Dora hears Dominic’s admission that he is her real father, I wanted to push the notion that such events can be simultaneously big and small.

Working within the limitations of a finite vocal performance taken from a sample CD is often the best way to bring new levels of creativity you didn’t know you possessed. The moment that you impose restrictions is the time where the creative juices really begin to flow. I’ve never considered myself a grace under pressure kind of gent but sometimes the sun even shines on a dog’s arse and in this case, that arse was yours truly.

To this end, I had less than a minute of material to work with but there was something about both what and how Danny sang which again made me think she was perfect for the part of Dora. The words were eerily appropriate to both the character and the story I was trying to tell.