Ah, the closing track and thus final blog post in this series about Golden Apple. Thanks so much for reading any or all of this! I don’t know if this is interesting to anyone else, but it’s fun to share.
For the intro drum loop, I was inspired after hearing about Sly Stone making “There’s a Riot Goin’ On” by himself in a trailer. He went through no less than 3 Maestro Rhythm Kings (an early drum machine) in the process. So I wanted the loop to sound like a drum machine that is starting to die, at which point the band starts to creep in and the production goes from black and white to technicolor.
This song also went through some of the most extreme structural changes before we settled on the final form. I think we unlocked the best shape for this song, and it’s all held together by Aaron’s excellent vocals. In fact, for this and at least another song, we tried background vocals, but they just seemed to take away from the closeness of the lead vocal.
We put a lot of thought into the order of the songs for this album, and this song just always seemed to be the best closing track.