Oh! California

In this song California is some sort of person. California likes to pretend that John Lennon isn't dead. That makes me California.

Singing about assassination is about as much fun as singing about suicide. Certainly there are less songs written about celebrity murders than suicide - neither are cheery subjects. Many of my childhood memories are bad. Not that I had a bad childhood, it is just that I tend to recall the bad over the good. So it is no shock to me how well I remember the day Lennon was murdered. This year I almost succeeded in forgetting it. In fact, I nearly erased the name of the wretched gunman from my mind. Sadly it was let loose from where it was lodged.

This is a collage of sorts. Odd and ends pasted and cut up to form this piece. As for the recording, Tim Walsh did it in a spare bedroom back in 1999 (I think). He helped with that percussion, which is a plastic bag full of cassette tapes and the bass drum is me pounding on an old suit case. I am playing my Dad's National Resonator Mandolin and use it for a ripping blasphemous solo. Plus there is the fake Theremin sound courtesy of the Roland Juno.