Words: Mike Powell
Music: Mike Powell, Al Powell, Ian Tanner, Andrew Horrocks
I have a recording from late 1987, where before the song starts, I said that Mike had just given me the melody and lyrics for Never Say Goodbye on the eve of that show. So that piece of evidence would conclude that Mike wrote all the words and all the melody for this song. My memory is a bit sketchy on the matter. The opening keyboard part certainly sounds like something I would have come up with, but the big question is, would that intro have been the impetus for the rest of the song or was it something I added after the core of the tune was written? Andy's guitar part sounds like it was custom-written, so it wouldn't be too far to assume that the song started with yet another Andy guitar part which the band then started collaborating on. It's also possible that Mike wrote the body of this song on his own and then brought it to the band. Maybe Mike can shed some light on this for me. It's been too long!!
Mike wrote the words about his grandmother who had passed away at the time. Its more straight-forward approach took us away from our usual "Yes" sound, and pointed the way towards what we would start writing after Into Thy Hands was completed.
Structurally, it followed a pattern we would definitely repeat later on in our careers, that being, having 3-4 sections of music all preceding the actual chorus. Usually in pop songwriting you have a main section, a pre-chorus and then the chorus. Never more than 2 different ideas before the chorus. (of course in today's zero-attention-span music world, you're lucky if you get one stupid idea for the whole dumb song! Anyway... I'm bitter!)
Never Say Goodbye has 4 distinct sections before the chorus hits. Part 1 is the "Windows and pictures" section, which follows the basic chord structure of the intro. Part 2 takes a darker note at the "And there comes a time when all good things must die" part. Part 3 is the instrumental part, which features my life-long friend Darren Walters on violin. Part 4 is really the only logical candidate for a standard Pre-Chorus, as the "the world just keeps on turning" section leads perfectly to the majestic chorus, "to see the burning bush is to feel the burning love."
But then, before you get too familiar with the chorus, we jump right back to the start and do it all over again. On the 2nd chorus, you get a longer version, but then we re-vamp the Pre-chorus over some cool, stacked harmonies by Mike and I. (Actually, on this recording, Mike sang harmonies on the choruses too.)
At the end, we introduced another new section, which was a melody I had from another unused song at that time. Following this, on the final word "goodbye..." we hit the dramatic Bm chord and swirl off into the distance.
This complex arrangement would have taken some rehearsal time, and I think that's where the co-writing credits come from. I'm pretty sure the body of the tune was written by Mike, so Al, Andy and I likely contributed and added sections to the tune as we put the whole arrangement together. The instrumental part with the violin was either written by Andy or Al.
In terms of the recording... yet again, a dated, annoying DX7IIFD sound established the tone! I remember not long after the album was done, one of our long-time Awakening fans/friends had mentioned that there seemed to be a few too many "plunky plunky" things on our Into Thy Hands album. Of course, being the pompous ass I was at the time, I took that as an insult, but again, in retrospect, I wish I could go back in time and burn that DX7 in effigy!! (Actually, I gave the keyboard away a few years ago to a friend of mine who has consistently hooked me up with fantastic VST keyboard plugins for my studio PC!! He's a vintage keyboard collector, so I was glad to unload that DX7IIFD into his more appreciative hands!)
I mentioned in my introductory posting that the ending of this song was supposed to be a Sergeant Pepper moment on the album. I wish I could remember what it was supposed to be, but ultimately it doesn't matter, because we ran out of time and money to make it happen. I'm fairly certain there was to be some form of musical "trip through the cosmos" at the end, which would have cross-faded into the beginning of the song "Clear Day," but there just wasn't time to do it. The effect is still somewhat there because of the wind chimes and echoey guitar part.
What most of you wouldn't know was that we had an actual ending for the song which we used to do live before the album was recorded, and thankfully, that idea got scrapped in the studio!! It was a cheesy thing that sounded like a rock version of Steely Dan!!
Mike was great at writing emotional lyrics that didn't go into the cheese region, and that was hard in those evangelical days of the late 80's. Mike seemed to be able to capture a more indirect way of making his point. "Can't last forever waving goodbye in the pouring rain" is a great example of Mike's poetic angle. When I look over the whole body of the Into Thy Hands record, Never Say Goodbye is my favorite lyric on the album.
Ian - June 21/09
No comments:
Post a Comment