Transcription

[pptjc@vaxk.bton.ac.uk (It's in the trees... It's coming...)]

Peter Chow from Brighton (UK) writes:

Someone posted about the lyrics to 'You Want Alchemy'. I have a copy that I transcribed a few weeks ago...

What a lovely afternoon
On a cloudbusting kind of day.
We took our own 'Mystery Tour'
And got completely lost somewhere up in the hills.
And we came up on a bee-keeper,
And he said "Did you know they can change it all?"

You want alchemy.
They turn the roses into gold
They turn the lilac into honey
They're making love for the peaches.

And we're thinking,
"Who is this guy?"
"Is he some kind of nut or what?".
He said, "I don't meet many people..",
"I'm very busy with the hives.".
ZzzzZzzzz.. Sun's gone down..
"When's my cloud of bees coming home?".

They got alchemy.
They turn the roses into gold
They turn the lilac into honey
They're making love for the peaches.
	
And they'll do it,
Do it for you.
They'll do it,
Do it for you.

"And if you see them, send 'em right on home to me"

(what they gonna do...?)
They got Aaaaaaaa.. 
Turn the roses into gold.
And they'll do it for you
Do it for you (what they gonna do...?)
I'll tell Yaaaaaa... 
Making love for the peaches. (what they gonna do...?)
Daaaaaamaaaaakiiiiindaaaaa honey.
(they do it for you)
They do it for you.

And why not...?


They bring me so much pleasure.


I have to say that my favourite lines are the last but one and the one that 
goes "Is he some kind of nut - or what?". That such a sarcastic remark should 
be sung so sweetly is really very funny. 

I listen to it quite a lot (unlike 'Show A Little Devotion') but even though 
I really like the song, there are some serious defects that detract from my 
enjoyment. The drum sound is truely appalling; very agressive due to a 
combination of harsh EQ and all the cymbals being far too high in the mix. 
There's also an unforgivably crud edit at 3:08.5 on the word "You". The track 
as a whole displays some mild digital clipping and the cello sustain at the 
end has an annoying dropout on it. This could mean that the strings were 
recorded at another studio on analogue machines (like the orchestra for MoP) 
or were recorded at Kate's place a couple of years ago before the switch to 
digital. Y'know, it's at times like this that I feel like writing to Kate and 
giving her and especially Del a damn good telling off!!! I mean... would *you* 
spend 100 grand on digital multi-track and mastering recorders just to show 
off your latest failures at engineering?

The argument that 'oh well, it's just a B-side...' doesn't work (not least 
because the album has got some duff engineering on it too). If you're going to 
do something, do it properly! This has always been true but is more so now 
that digital technology makes your mistakes *that* much more obvious.

Perhaps one of the reasons people resist digital audio is that analogue audio 
recordings hide a multitude of sins... Please don't all kill me at once; form 
a nice orderly queue! :)