Now I'm really upset...The saga of No Magic

"No Magic" is the Grande Ballade of Won Out. Every album should have one. They represent the emotional heart of the collection. Unlike "Trucks In The Sky" which was recorded live in one take, "No Magic" , even though it featured the same instrumental line-up, Arlene's piano and my guitar, took forever to record. In March of 1976, a year after the first sessions ended, we had scraped together enough equipment to begin recording again. In our living room high up on the top floor of the Family Compound, we spend several days recording about a dozen of the songs that I'd been writing over the past months. Most were not keepers, being either goofy send-ups like "The Mess Up", about a dismayed man whose wife had suffered an accident that left her as a brain in a jar, or pseudo-country clunkers like the anti-exercise diatribe 'Jack LaLanne" (for those too young to know, Mr. LaLanne was a fitness guru with a weekly TV show). But there were a few potential keepers like the fierce "Monster City" (at one point I considered this for the album title - the would turn up again phrase in future compositions) and, of course the present song. 

The original pressings of the album featured the version of this song that was recorded during these sessions, a live-in-the-living-room lucky strike with Arlene playing our new Fender Rhodes.  About two years later  I decided I wanted to add a harmony vocal on the chorus, and since we had recorded live to two-track and overdubs weren't possible we had to start from scratch. We went to Xandor Studio - actually this guy Jim's garage out in Orinda - and did it again, this time with Arlene playing a grand. I still wasn't entirely happy with it so we found ourselves later at Bay Records a few months later, re-recording the vocals. Replacing the song with the new version was one of several reasons that I decided I had to re-do the album, reasons that will make themselves apparent as this moves along. The Xandor session also produced at least basic tracks for a few more album cuts, "Everything They Say" and "Breaking Point". 

I'll be on the sidewalk when they paint the building brown

I'll watch them tear it down

But I'm pretty sure you won't see me around

Give me all my letters back so I can mark them "paid"

I'll wish that you had stayed

But you finally found out how the game was played

What gave you the idea that happiness can wait

Rides in from out of state

Inspires me to write the songs I know I'll come to hate

It just occurred tome while watching you undress

Why it was such a mess

I'd allowed your little mind so little rest\

I'll turn on your station when they play your last request

I told you what was best

And I knew you'd never figure out the rest

It was never my intention in the end to let you down

This god-forsaken town

Will seem the same the second time around

What gave me the idea that happiness was sand

You held it in your hand

Convinced me that I was the one who didn't understand

It just occurred to me while looking through your smile

You were just another child

Who could only love while loving was in style

Yikes! "No Magic" is not a happy song. In fact, there were no happy songs on side one of Won Out. "Fall On Me" addresses a failed relationship, "Love Is All Right", whatever it's about, isn't the least bit cheerful, "Trucks In The Sky" finds me unhappy because I don't get to see my girl often enough and finally "No Magic" appears. If the first version was sadly reflective and delicately played, the recording that ended up on the record is almost dirge-like as it proceeds through the downbeat lyrics, which read like first draft - as if I was in too much of a hurry to get my feelings down to go back and refine them. The disappointment and anger ring true even though several of the rhymes were clearly borrowed from other songs. I was sure upset about something! 

"No Magic" was recently chosen by Anthology Recordings for their collection Still Sad which features songs of broken relationships and heartbreak from around the world.

The cover of the Still Sad collection. Is that me peeking through the door?

                                                              and for now I say IGLOO


More, More, More!; The Andrea True Connection had a hit with that title. Andrea was a porn star who decided to go from porn to pop - which she did with some success. "More, More, More" was Number one on the American disco charts in 1976. She managed two more sizable hits before a flop album ended her career. Deciding not to go back to acting, she became a substance abuse counselor. In 2002, "More More More" was #45 on VH1's "Best Dance Songs of All Time" and in 2002 she appeared on their "100 Greatest One-Hit Wonders" (despite the fact that she had other hits). And yes, I owned a copy of "More More More" because who didn't/ I wish I still had it - might be worth a cupla bux. Andrea True passed away in 2011, aged 68. In an interview towards the end of her life she said she wanted to be remembered as "someone who gave people pleasure". 'Nuff said

                                                                         I never said it was a great song!