Over the Rocky Mountains

Ladies and Gentlemen let me introduce you to the third album by Mister Fusty, “Over the Rocky Mountains”. It’s now available for you to listen to and download in the Fusty Emporium, Or you can listen/download/share from the player below..

It’s been mastered with expert precision by Jimmy Ether, top man of the rather marvellous Headphone Treats label, of which I am thrilled to be now part of. There will be more info to come about Headphone Treats and their lovely new website later in the year. Stay tuned!

I’m very proud of this album, it was a tough one to do as it’s the first I’d attempted with vocals. I do hope you like it. Below are some, probably quite tedious, ‘sleeve notes’ I wrote about each track on the album.

“Rocky”

The title is a pun really, it’s a ‘rocky’ track, i.e. it ‘rocks out’ a bit, but also the chorus refers to being, “Over the Rocky Mountains”. I got married last year and went on honeymoon in Vancouver and fell in love with the place. We’ve been to Canada a few times and we keep dreaming of moving there. To get to Vancouver you fly over the Rocky Mountains, coming from the UK anyway, so that’s where the title comes from. Also it’s a double meaning, the phrase ‘Over the Rocky Mountains’ could also mean you are over a particularly bad or rough patch in your life. So it’s a place everyone would like to escape to at some point in their lives.
There’s a totally different version of this song which may appear at some point.

“Make a Stand”

This song has had probably the most changes and fiddling about (that’s er..a technical term by the way) of all the songs on the album. It’s had several different choruses and different arrangements until I finally settled on something I liked. I don’t know why it took so long, but I got there in the end! It’s a bit of a environmental song but it’s also about people just joining political groups on social networking sites and then feeling they have done their bit. I’m basically saying don’t just join a Facebook group, go out and protest on the streets or write to the powers that be if you feel strongly about something. Not that I ever do, though.

“Talk”

This just started out as a drum sequence and bass line then developed from there. The vocals were done really quickly (it probably shows) there’s a hushed and low feel to them as my wife, Andrea, was in the house and I was a bit embarrassed that she’d hear me! With the lyrics I was literally making them up as I went along. I don’t really know what they are about but I guess my subconscious might.

“Airport Lounge”

This is part love song, part travelogue. All the places in the song I’ve been to and the events are real. For instance I did nearly choke on the Champs Elysee in Paris, it was a chocolate bar that went down the wrong way! You’ll notice that after I sing “Barcelona…”, it goes backwards and weird. The lyric goes, “Barcelona, Sagrada Familia Fantastico!” which is a reference to the wonderful unfinished cathedral by Gaudi there. But I had trouble singing it as it’s a lot to fit in to that line. So I just reversed it and added spooky reverb, so no one will know…until now that is. “Don’t forget Berlin“, that’s where I asked Andrea to marry me.

“Black Rain”

I had the idea of having a song just based on the same chords in a cycle and seeing how I could build it up. I thought of a couple of mantra-like vocal phrases, that I made up on the spot, again I don’t know what my subconscious is saying – perhaps I was particularly depressed that day!
I was determined to include a mandolin somewhere on the album and it’s on this track. Although I can’t play it very well, it adds a bit of texture.

“Exit”

This is another song about escape and wishing to move away from the country you live. It was originally a song I gave to friends of mine (Gaz & Daniel from The Heavenly Spheres) who were going to add their own input, although I don’t think they’ve ever got around to finishing their version yet, so I thought I’d do my own. I suspect should they finish it, theirs will trounce mine.

“Thirty Seven”

This song was pretty much written, recorded and finished on my 37th birthday (hence the title).
Originally it had vocals and lyrics but at the last minute I decided I didn’t like them, also I thought it’d be good to have an instrumental track on the album in reference to my former instrumental past. (I’m a recovering instrumentalist.)

“Grumpy Like Me”

This is the only song on the album where I came up with the melody before writing the song. Usually I write a song around a set of chords or arrangement but the chorus of this song came into my head, lyrics and all, one day and straight away I tried to create a song around it. I wanted to have a funky, disco-like feel. The end features Andrea and me clapping and chanting, which made her laugh. I thought I’d leave the laughing bit in. It’s a bit of fun really. Although it’s true though, my wife and me are a pair of grumpy buggers…

“Blankety Blank”

This is one of those occasions where I came with a tune and arrangement I really liked one afternoon but had no lyrics to go with it. I was keen to finish the track but my mind was totally blank on what lyrics to have, so I came up with the daft idea of writing a song about not being able to write a song. Incidently it’s also the name of a, sadly long gone, British game show.

“Wake Me Up When The Future’s Rosy”

I managed to coerce my wife Andrea to sing some backing vocals on this. It’s a quite melancholy song about sometimes wanting to shut the world out. I think I must have written it after watching the news in an “oh-isn’t-the-world-terrible?” kind of moment. Musically it has 1980s fey indie band feel.

“A Balloon Flies Over Ruskington”

This album, and indeed this song, is dedicated to my friend Ian who sadly died of cancer last year. He was only about the same age as me. At the funeral his children let go of two balloons at his graveside that flew into the sky, and I remember watching them fly off into a beautiful blue sky. It was a moving moment and inspired this song.
You may or may not be interested to know that this album starts and finishes on the same chord, a Dmaj7.

Tags: Mister Fusty News, new album, over the rocky mountains