Stories Behind the Songs: “Choices” (Part 2 of 3)
“Blame You”, the third movement, came just before Christmas. Katie did an excellent job on the vocals; she normally sings folk, country, and bluegrass, but I always heard some rock and roll in her voice. John added the interesting clavichord part fairly late in the recording process. The next piece, “Eye for Eye” was completed in early January. It was straightforward to record, though I did add extra distortion to the guitars after the fact. This is followed by the final reprise of the “Won’t Do It Again” theme, faster and rawer this time around.
Jackie is tempted three times during the course of the piece; first by hatred, then by fear, and finally by greed. She comes to grips with each in the recurring “Maybe I Should” pieces. The chord progression and melody date from January 2000. The first iteration features only acoustic guitar and vocals, the subsequent occurrences add more instruments as the temptation becomes greater.
“My Son”, the next section, was written in early January 2006. As with the other songs which feature the character Mrs. Coleman, the vocals are slowed down. At the end of this section I reprised the bridge from “Cold Sun” to represent the overprotective impulse of the mother. The steel guitar-like sounds in this section were recorded by John in several successive tries; we ultimately decided that the different takes actually sounded better when all played at the same time.