Big Love
I grew up in a little village and there’s a song by the band Little Village (John Hiatt, Ry Cooder, Nick Lowe, Jim Keltner) that stuck in my head since I heard their first and only album back in 1992. The song is pretty simple but that’s exactly what makes it so hard to perform. Three chords is all it takes.
This morning I grabbed my acoustic guitar and I warmed up like every morning (check out my ‘Start Your Day With A Song’-series on YT with more than 300 videos on the playlist) and I noticed the dropped D tuning, which reminded me immediately of ‘Big Love’, a slow breathing animal of a song. I performed it many times and many times I performed it too fast. I always have to remind myself to chip off a few bpms (beats per minute) from my assumed tempo before I start the intro.
It’s one of those songs that starts low and quiet on the first verse but when the chorus kicks in, it changes the dynamics and vocally it’s almost impossible to sing that chorus quietly. With the band it’s a lot of fun to play with those dynamics.
I never saw them live on stage but my drummer did. He told me that they had a lot of fun on stage and even more fun backstage with the food. A great reminder to all the event organisers: if the band is well fed, the chances of a great concert is up at least 80%. En Guete (enjoy your meal) as we say here.