As I sing in my song "leave a trace", "and then there's these songs, improvised or crafted". That line speaks to the two major categories of songs I've recorded: many were recorded in situations where I had little or no idea what I was about to play before hitting the record button, and others are more traditionally written with everything being pretty much worked out and even rehearsed before recording. This goes for my solo "singer/songwriter" work as well as my bands, as I've had a few bands that improvised songs on the spot. I will still, on occasion, completely make up a new song at an open mic, and there are several songs in my open mic repertoire that are never the same twice because the lyrics are more an outline than a script. All through the E.B.A. days I found it a liberating and often mind-blowing experience to pick up a guitar and sit down in front of a couple of microphones and hit record without any idea what I was about to do. That led to the dozens of cassette tapes I called "The Andy Band Improv Volume ##" (with ## in roman numerals). Those improv tapes continued long after E.B.A., but were eventually supplanted with doing the same thing at the computer with first OSC's Deck II then Apple's Logic Pro.

In the mid-nineties I digitized my favorite improvisations from The Andy Band Improv Volumes XXIV and XXV and released the all-improv CDs the right tool and liquid planet. This is one of my favorite little melodies and lyrics that popped out. Like my earlier song "it just might help us along", my friend Dave's brilliant song "Can't Go", and probably a few thousand other songs, the words are about the struggle of trying to write a song, or, in this case, pull "words from stone" as the tape rolled. I might have hinted at some other meanings, too.

Recorded with two mics, one pointed towards my acoustic guitar, one more towards my mouth, on May 25, 1995. Released on the all-improv album "liquid planet" in 1995.

Thanks for listening!

-Andy

pull it out

try to pull it out
but the words come like
words from stone
try to carve them out
I'm in love yet so alone 
so in love but so alone

try to pull it out
trying to do everything in a day
try to pull it out
we're zipping in the world
in such a frantic way
try to pull it out

what we're trying to do is so 
magical, magical

try to pull it out
something's coming our way
we'll to try to pull it off
we'll come around to 
figuring it all out someday
or at least how to pay
for this wonderful life we're 
living in this golden day
seeing it all some way
we're gonna pull it off
we're gonna pull it off

going to pull it out
I'm carving the words from these 
stone marble graves 
trying to figure it out
we're so together and yet 
we all are so alone

trying to pull it out
like a string of pearls from the milky way
it's so beautiful in the night 
under the stars with the
moon not yet risen
ain't yet over that there yonder horizon

trying to pull it out
cloudy reflections on the pond
we're gonna pull it out
that big old fish we'll fry him up 
for supper tonight
got to break the bread
give a toast for the summer
and all the past
that made this 
possible to pull it out

trying to pull out some words and thoughts tonight 

24 May 1995
©1995 by Andy Wyatt

download: pull it out.mp3