Sometimes I get a strong feeling that a song is coming on. The best way I can describe it is everything else you're thinking of be it, lists of things to do, the dog needs feeding, hundreds of emails need your attention, you're running late to an appointment, the bills are piling up, is your friend still pissed at you, your health care is cancelled, why do we all die, my neighbor was good to me today...all of these rumbling thoughts come to a stop and the song pushes its way into the foreground.
One night I got together with Cody LePow, a bluesy musician I'd met at the local La Crescenta haunt Whisperz when they still had acoustic Tuesdays. I didn't know much about him but knew that musically he had something very cool going on, bluesy, great dobro playing, slide, blew a mean harmonica. You could tell he had a spiritual side with Native American bloodline running through him. What he was doing was really cool, and he'd been writing songs all his life. We sat down at a point when one of these song feelings hit, we took out the guitars and a few hours later "Lay Me Down" was there.
"Lay Me Down" reminded me of that feeling of excitement, adrenaline, when your heart is pumping hard right when you walk on stage and are about to begin the show...that's the opening line. "When I walked in the bright lights, I could hardly see, you sitting there so carefully watching over me." This line is speaking to the audience, the feeling of the blinding lights, trying to find faces familiar, those faces in the crowd that you know give a serious care about what you're doing. I like to focus on those particular people, the energy flow feeds back and forth like an engine, gasoline powering the motor. "Dealing in blackbirds while the police watch the van" is a line I'm often asked about. I love the image that pulls up. I see the cops standing in front of a van while a deal with the darkside is going on in the back, with blackbirds being the currency of exchange.
When it came time to record "Lay Me Down", I was rehearsing with the band (Ido Sasson, Guy Erez, and Dave Allen) at Swinghouse in Hollywood. I'd brought in Guy to produce the record and he plays bass guitar; he came up with that James Bond sounding bass line hook in rehearsal and we all knew it was the perfect tone for the song. We recorded "Lay Me Down" at House Of Blues Studios in Encino to get that rich full band tracking together sound. At this point we brought in Jamie Muhoberac to play Hammond B3. House of Blues Studios has this glorious B3 with a Leslie Cabinet to get that classic rotary sound. Yossi Sasson took photos during our recording sessions at House Of Blues, click here to get a visual idea of what we were working with in there.
After "Lay Me Down" was recorded, mixed, mastered, and pressed up; I sent it out to the few friends in radio I knew, one of my friends suggested sending it to Billy Zero. Billy Zero had a show called "The Radar Report" on XM Radio that featured hip upcoming indies - he was the very first to spin "Lay Me Down" prior to my signing with Red Parlor Records and Bug Music. That was the beginning of the wave of interest in the song that ended up becoming the first single off my debut album Everything You Need. After that 45+ Triple A radio stations across the US picked up the song.
On my music player here, I've included the album version, a live version from an appearance at Los Angeles' KXLU 88.9's Liveation, and the instrumental version. I have two notable videos of the song, one taken at my album release party held at Hotel Cafe in April of 2009 and a most amazing moment for me and the band, performing on Craig Ferguson's Late Late Show.
Enjoy "Lay Me Down"
