LONELY MAMA 03 - On the Record (Release Day)

From humble beginnings on a cassette to the final record! Plus, the official music video!

“Lonely Mama” is available now as a limited edition 45rpm 7” single on Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready’s HockeyTalkter Records. The single is backed with “Skeleton Crew.” Get yours on white or green vinyl! Or both!

You can also find “Lonely Mama” wherever digital music is served.

Here is the official music video directed by John Jeffcoat and featuring Caitlin Jeffcoat playing my birth mother ca. 1970.

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Welcome to On the Record where I describe the process of recording and producing “Lonely Mama.” See my post from March 20, 2024, for more on how the song itself came to be.

“Lonely Mama" was written for my birth mother, Barb. This post from January 19, 2024, explains how she passed away just months before I attempted to make contact with her.

HUMBLE BEGINNINGS

The record version of "Lonely Mama" began as a mere sketch.  When I sat down at my cassette four-track recorder, I had just finished writing the song and wanted to quickly put it down so I could hear my final songwriting tweaks.  I was in pre-production mode looking for the right tempo, so I fired up a bone-simple drum loop and played it through my studio speakers before plugging in my trusty Shure SM7 microphone and hitting record.

Working the cassette four-track.

LET IT BLEED

Any audio engineers reading this might wonder if I was concerned about the drum loop sound bleeding into my vocal/guitar mic.  Well, if I thought I was making the record I wouldn’t have set it up this way, that's for sure.  But for this sketch I was unconcerned.  It sounded cool in my headphones, especially with the liberal dose of Deluxe Memory Man echo I drenched the track in.

My drum loop froze halfway through so I ended up capturing one and a half takes.  Then, on a second track, I immediately doubled both my guitar and voice.  Like on the first track, they shared the one mic.

INTO THE DIGITAL REALM

Next, I transferred the audio from the cassette machine into my computer and edited the top of the incomplete take to the rest of the full take.  My partner, Elaine Summers, suggested an edit to the ending so I cut that together before recreating my echo settings digitally and printing a rough mix. 

IT’S GOT THAT THING!

It didn’t take long for me to conclude that I had cut the basic track for the record version of the song.  While a bit noisy and far from perfect it just sounded like a record.  It had that thing.  It’s hard to describe what that thing is.  It takes a certain x-factor to elevate a mere recording to an actual record.  For my money this recording had it.  I played the track for Elaine and she agreed.

"I GET ME AN ALL-LA BAND TOMORROW"

For drums, I immediately thought of Jay Bellerose.  As luck would have it, he'd just returned from a tour with Robert Plant & Allison Kraus, so he was available.  For the bass chair I get a three-fer: Paul Bryan of Aimee Mann fame also serves as the track's co-producer and engineer. 

I sent Paul the files and later that week we were cutting Jay's drums.  They recorded in Paul's studio in Los Angeles while I listened and commented from my home on Vashon Island near Seattle.

Jay's drums paired wonderfully with my basic track.  I love how he held off on his kick drum entering until halfway through the second verse.  Such an interesting choice.  It makes the lyric "still it makes me cry" really connect.

A couple of days after drum tracking Paul overdubbed bass.  His instincts, like Jay's, served the song incredibly well.  With bass, drums, two guitars, and vocals, the record was sounding really close to being complete.

SERENDIPITY

To finish off, Paul suggested we add Mellotron to the arrangement.  Mellotron is an electro-mechanical keyboard from the 60s, where you press a key and it plays a magnetic tape recording of an instrument.  Each key has its own piece of tape!  Of all the sounds available, Paul chose violin.  He had no idea, but my birth mother, Barb, was a violinist!

The Mellotron enters with the bridge along with the lyrics:

Once upon a time in a fairy tale
A mother and child reunion
Could nothing ever be as heavenly a dream?
I’ve had it many times
I’ve had it many times, this dream

Paul’s treatment of the violins makes them sound like they are descending from a heavenly dream.  (Nice work, Paul!)

A FAIRY TALE REUNION AFTER ALL

While the song is relatively new it already holds a very special place for me.  It feels good to sing to Barb and to try and give voice to the deep sadness I felt when I learned we'd never get the chance to meet. I had built up the idea of a reunion in my mind, and when I learned of her passing, it brought upon some real complicated grief.

On the bright side, I did meet the rest of my birth family and we enjoyed a fairy tale reunion after all.  I wrote a bit about that in the post I linked to at the top of this page from January 19th, 2024.

You can find “Lonely Mama” anywhere digital music is served. Better yet, pick up a copy of the limited edition 7” vinyl on HockeyTalkter Records.

I’ll be performing the song live tomorrow night at my sold-out show at Vashon Center for the Arts. Hope to see you there.

Peace & Love Songs,

Pete