Yesterday was fun, except for an arse-bendingly horrible drive round the M25 after picking up my daughter’s birthday present in Bromley. The long-awaited day finally arrived when one of my songwriting heroes sang on one of our songs.
Chris Difford added a beautifully characterful low vocal to Jumping Ship. I had that “Squeeze sound” in my mind from a very early stage of working on the production – namely a bass vocal shadowing an octave under the lead, and there is no better man for the job than Chris, seeing as he spent much of his career singing those killer Squueze tracks with Glen Tilbrook in exactly that way.
You could barely have boiled an egg in the time between my arrival at his lovely country cottage out in East Sussex and the moment I packed up and left, such was the speed with which he nailed it to the floor and put a rug over the top of it for good measure. We even managed to squeeze in (no pun intended) some tea and biscuits.
Anyway, suffice it to say that I am really over the moon with the results. We’re nearly there with the recording now – one more backing vocal to add this Sunday when my dear friend Juliet Turner will add her magic to a track no-one has really heard yet, a very chilled Blue Nile-esque track called “The Old Town”.
I’m just so chuffed these great singers – Duke Special, Brian Eno, Gabi Frödén, Juliet Turner and of course Chris Difford have all given so generously of their time and energy to back up my dodgy old vocals. I think I should get Maurice to sing a bit more on the next record.