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MS: [Chuckles] But I do sing, I do feel very strongly about some of the songs that I
sing which are about relationships or are about a sense of power or the difficulties
in relationships. In particular, I think, I would look at ‘Mean Mistreater’ as being
much more about a kind of, this is the way the world can be, the world can be a mean
mistreater. I would say ‘Jack O’ Diamonds’ and ‘How Can I Leave?’ is one because of
JB Lenoir, and again, that was an odyssey that we found. We had a cassette of JB
Lenoir. I think it was recorded by some of the English.
BP: We played in Indianapolis years ago and the guitar player was the son of a family
that had a fortune, made a fortune in the drug business.
MS: In the legal drugs. Pharmaceuticals.
BP: Corporate, pharmaceuticals. And he had a huge collection of equipment and
albums and original tapes that he had bought. He was a collector of autographs and
everything. He played us a tape of JB Lenoir, which was a unique, original, reel-to-
reel. And we made a little cassette. I think I
taped some of it with a Walkman. Then we
Manjırā
̄
found the only recording of that entire scene
was made by two English hippies, of all the
things, who went over and found him in the
60s. One of the guys was playing the finger –
you know those things that go on your
fingers, Indian kind of ding ding. I don't know
what they're called. In India the dancers have
these little bells on their fingers. [The are
̄
called manjırā (also spelled manjeera) Ed]
So they were using those, and I abbreviated
it by using the triangle when we did one of them. It starts with the triangle. It's the
only time I've ever been recorded playing triangle.
MS: But you know, there's other ones that I think, again, a lot of the songs, I guess
mean something. I do think that I'm going to pick out, for example, ‘Where Is My
Friend?’. I mean, other than our original songs on the album, which I really believe
and feel strongly about, something like ‘Where Is My Friend?’ is a song that I sang
and was more than privileged to sing with Louisiana Red. ‘Where Is My Friend?’, I
think also expresses a kind of sense of that moment where you've had success and
then when it falls a little bit away and you end up with that question of where is my
friend? What happened?
BP: Thanks for nothing everybody.
MS: Yeah. There will always be the songs that are like ‘Cravin A Man Blues’, would
be one that I've sung for years and years and years and years, and then I love ‘Avenue
Breakdown’. I suppose there's another side of it Ian, that I would remark on and
again I will credit Brian for encouraging me to do things like to hum and to try and