Free MP3 for February 2011: "Liberty Island" (remix)

This month's free MP3 features a very old song with a long and complex evolutionary history. "Liberty Island" is a co-write between me and my cousin Bruce Rundman.

I wrote the lyrics in 1993 after Bruce and I visited New York City. We waited in line to climb up into the crown of the Statue of Liberty. It was a fun adventure, but the interior of the statue creeped me out, and made me claustrophobic, so I wrote about how I felt. Initially it was called "The Girl in Green."

Bruce added music and lyrical evolution in the late '90s, and the song took its final form.

Lowell Michelson's drum performance was recorded in his then-basement in North Minneapolis for use on the Styx Tribute album. I recorded him on a minidisc 4-track playing a Styx song, but I can't recall which one...it was "Grand Illusion" or "Lorelei" I think. Ultimately, that Styx cover song was abandoned, and Lowell's drums were resurrected for use on Bruce's solo album version of "Liberty Island."

We transferred the drum tracks from the minidisc over to ProTools on the computer, edited the drumming to fit "Liberty Island," and tracked over the top of the new structure. We recorded Bruce's solo album in my basement in North Minneapolis in Summer 2003. This original recording of "Liberty Island" can be heard on Bruce's True North album.

Later, in the mid-aughts, I dug back into the "Liberty Island" session and added additional instrumentation and vocals. Since it was a co-write, I thought it would be fun to record an alternate version of the tune with myself on lead vocals. I also set some strict rules for myself to follow, just for fun. The rules were:

+ lyrics must be tweaked to follow the rules of "perfect rhyme," inspired by the Jimmy Webb songwriting book Tunesmith

+ I would allow no guitar parts other than bass guitar

This new version sat unheard and unmixed for many years, until Mark LaForest was enlisted to mix the song a few months ago in the Fall of 2010. Mark made some excellent production and arrangement decisions, as well as added some tasty electric guitar tracks. Find out more about Mark via his prog-rock band Flincho.

Listening now to this recording, which I hadn't worked on since about 2005, I'm struck by how influenced it is by the band Styx. To me, I hear echoes of the darker Tommy Shaw songs like "Love in the Midnight" or "Man in the Wilderness." The monophonic synthesizer solos that Bruce and I play throughout the song were directly inspired by Dennis DeYoung's soloing from the Grand Illusion and Pieces of Eight album eras.

The lyrics place this song squarely in the genre of "Rock Songs About the Statue of Liberty," the most famous one, of course, being "American Woman" by the Guess Who. Looking back on these nearly-20-year-old lyrics, they read a bit anti-American to me. However, that was not the intent! They're supposed to be read literally, as an observational tune about how weird it is to crawl up inside a giant woman's body, and to be just one of countless little people in line to peek through her forehead.

Download the song from my Audio Page.

LIBERTY ISLAND

words and music by Jonathan & Bruce Rundman

up against the empty April skies

feeling young and small beneath her crown

I could see inside her hollow eyes

I could step behind her quiet frown

closed inside her clothes I stayed

I could feel the shivers up her spine

and I knew with every move I made

I was one more number in her line

and I'm back again on Liberty Island

for the girl in green

and she stands alone on Liberty Island

and I remain unseen

people wait for hours with no complaint

they can't seem to turn their eyes away

tell me is she some kind of saint?

I'm afraid of heights like these today

and she haunts me every day and night

I can trace the pictures of her face

she's an angel shining bright

I'm a shadow cast in a far away place

and I'm back again on Liberty Island

for the girl in green

and she stands alone on Liberty Island

and I remain unseen