The original version of No Goat has drums, bass, electric guitar, etc, but I still need to wrestle it into shape, so here’s an acoustic take that gives you an idea of the song. No Goat (a working title inspired by the goat-like cry my daughter was doing at the time1 - though the song isn’t about her) was written last summer during my weekly sessions at a local rehearsal studio in my barrio in Barcelona.
I probably added too many parts to the final mix, so I decided to strip the song back down to two guitars (well, four, as everything is double-tracked) and vocals.
I added some percussion to the acoustic version, but as the whole thing was recorded without a click track, it sounded pretty loose (and some of the takes got interrupted - see footnote below). Lyrically, I’ve been collecting shiny things from various nests - including a fragment from the 1960s and one from the 1620s. I always enjoy messing about with a famous idiom or two.
Anyway, I’ll probably aim to share the full-band version of the song at some point, but for now, here’s No Goat.
Lyrics:
I sometimes wonder
how you hit the jackpot
while we sat there laughing
about what I can’t remember.
Guess you had to be there.
But you never were.
And now I don’t have time
to figure it out.
And I don’t have time
to shake it up, baby, now.
And I don’t have time
to twist and shout.
As you always said,
‘Watch where you’re going.’
‘Watch what you say.’
Etc.
And I don’t have time.
And I don’t have time.
I try to imagine
sailing through life,
not weighed down by baggage,
not wading through wreckage.
No man is an island,
cold and remote.
And now I don’t have time
to figure it out.
And I don’t have time
to shake it up, baby, now.
And I don’t have time
to twist and shout.
As you always said,
‘Watch where you’re going.’
‘Watch what you say.’
Etc.
And I don’t have time.
And I don’t have time.
Until next week,
JCV
In fact, I did a take of some percussion on this acoustic version, which was interrupted by this particular goat-like cry, so it didn’t make the final cut. But maybe I will mix this into the full version of the song.
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