Into Thy Hands Song By Song: Song #7 Where Is Love

Song #7: Where Is Love?

Words: Ian Tanner

Music: Ian Tanner, Mike Powell and Andrew Horrocks

The intro to this song is one of the rare times the DX7IIFD had some positive use! The growling sound and the melody line during that intro all came from one patch, so it was nice to be able to do this live and have it sound just like the album. I also really enjoy the feedback that occurs as the intro awkwardly, and intentionally modulates from Db to Dm.

A bit of history.

This song was started by Mike Powell as a home recording of his own. I remember going to where he lived at the time in 1987, and spending an evening on 2 of his new songs, this one and Knife Of Life. We later brought our rough 4 track demo to practice and started making the song happen as a group. It's been too long for me to remember who actually wrote what, but I'm pretty sure the chord structure and the weird bass part were all Mike's invention. The melody might be mine, although it does sound similar to other songs Mike had written melodies for at the time. The chords and melody in the chorus sound a lot like something I would have written, so it's possible that all Mike had when we got together was an intro and a verse. I know for sure that the middle section with those WHOAS again (!) was written by Andy.

The production of this song began what became a somewhat magical second half of the album. It was our intention early on in the production to have the second half flow together without gaps between songs, like the newly released Sgt. Pepper CD. So it added a more artistic overview to every song that ended up on side 2 - (I know, CD's don't have sides! Whatever!)

I'm pretty sure there is grand piano following the bass part in the verses, and it also plays throughout the meandering ending. It was nice using a real grand piano, since it was already at the studio waiting to be used!

One funny thing I can re-tell is something I noticed after I sang the lead vocal. During verse 2, I get all worked up and sing this emotional line, "it seems when things are going great, I end up in a hole!" The problem is, no matter how many times I've heard this song, I always hear the last phrase as "I end up in a whore" just because of my stylized vocal! I'm pretty sure at subsequent live shows, that I went out of my way to pronounce that line clearly and correctly!

The ending of the song was quite a bit of work. The military sounding drum stuff at the end was actually done electronically. Rick Hutt ran Mike's snare through the very expensive processing unit called the 480L, which was THE ultimate studio reverb/effects tool of the era, and upwards of $10,000. Amazing how things have changed! You can get a good reverb out of Garageband these days for virtually nothing!

The vocal collage at the end was a time consuming affair. Andy and I always liked these complex vocal arrangements, where you'd swear 3 or 4 separate pieces were all happening at the same time. I don't think we cared too much whether people could make out which of the lines was supposed to be the focal point. It was just supposed to be dense and then as the song faded out, celestial.

The song credits say that it is dedicated to "A.K." It took me awhile to remember who those initials represented, and then it finally came to me. There was a Jazz musician I had played with at around this time who was pretty severely messed up. He was insane from being ultra creative, but also from his heavy drug-use, and not just the soft drugs that, even at that time would have been completely blown out of proportion by me. I guess I felt it important to write something about the possible inward story going on inside this guy, how he was feeling lost and confused and was looking for answers in the wrong places. I could now say the same thing about myself back then, minus the drug use!!

All that said, I'm still really moved by this song. Many elements on the 2nd half of the album bring back moments of sincere pleasure and emotion for me, and the end of Where Is Love is one of those moments.

Ian - June 16/09