10. Who Can Blame Me

just barely.

Like You Really Care  >  Really Wish I Could  >  Who Can Say?  >  My Father's Hat  >  Gordon Matta Clark  >  Mar y Cielo  >  Vibrations  >  This  >  You Know I Know  •  Who Can Blame Me?  >  Astray  >  Dear Mongolia  >  Mar y Cielo (reprise)

Here's the final track :

if you're having trouble with SoundCloud : 

This one is a total throw away that turned into perhaps my favorite song on the album. 

I wrote this one on a walk and it never really had any music attached to it. Just the melody. I might have performed it once or twice a capella.

When the theme of this album started to come together, I thought this could fit but I couldn't figure out the chord structure that went with the melody. Then I heard this Nina Simone snippet and realized perhaps all that was needed was some clapping. 

So I did this demo, with me clapping : 

Then, when I knew I was going to have the horns in studio for Gordon Matta Clark I thought maybe one miasmic chord could glue it together. That all sounded really great to me and I was going to leave it at that, until my friend Kyle heard it and suggested it would be cool to have some sort of deranged guitar off in the background at the end, like "a far-off Sonny Sharrock kind of guitar thing". I had no idea who Sonny was but, after a little searching I think I understood. I don't know what Aaron had listened to before he came into the studio to do this take, but one take was all it took. 

And, again, thanks to Jon Evans for molding it into this Golem. 

This is perhaps the most pathetic of the protagonists on this record.

Lyrics

You treat me so tenderly so rarely.

You say to me that you love me but just barely. 

You give me too much time to think whether you care for me or not.

You give me too much time to drink myself into denial

about your accusations and your trials

my deliberations and your sentences 

get all muddled up

until you cuddle up

and say "I'm sorry" 

again.

Is it ten times this week or more?

Baby, I don't want you to think I'm keeping score,

but you treat me so tenderly so rarely.

Who can blame me?

music and Lyrics by Humberto

Korey Charles : trumpet

Bruce Abbott : alto and soprano saxes

John Wolf : trombone

Dan Sullivan : baritone sax

Jon : bass, clapping

Aaron : guitar

Hum : vocals, clapping, percussion

Recorded by Jon Evans at Brick Hill StudioMastered by Coast in Berkeley, CA

LISTEN TO THE WHOLE ALBUM : : : AND NOW AVAILABLE ON iTunes, Spotify, Amazon, and all other music platforms.