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Burgelle Street

from Strange Presence by Xrisville

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about

Burgelle Street (4:30)

A colleague and jazz guitarist named John Kuipers helped me find the right wires to finally spark this one to life. Originally recorded live in the mid-1980s at Sheridan College, the song (a story of odd people living on an odd street) was intentionally Beatlesque in its inception. I played the bass line, accompanying chords and melody on a baby grand piano, then laid down a basic drum track. Guitarist Keith Elliott improvised a guitar part, and co-engineered. The final recording showed me the song basically worked but lacked a certain, indefinable voltage. There was a drowsy compositional undercurrent that I didn’t like. So I chucked the recording into a box of scratch tapes and forgot about it.

Years later during a conversation about the Beatles’ approach to songwriting, John Kuipers offered a few tips about the use of 6th and 7th chords, which George Harrison had so memorably employed. I understood 7th chords and had often used them, but I’d found 6th chords difficult. With fresh insight, I reworked “Burgelle Street” (combining seemingly incompatible 6th and 7th chords in the same song) and the song finally popped.

Instrumentation: power grand piano, thump bass, drums, percussion, bass pizzicato, D-50 Fantasy Percussion, distorted guitar, toy piano, Stratocaster, sitar, violin, oboe.

lyrics

Burgelle Street (Lyrics)

Dear old Anne
writing love letters with her own hand
She needs a man
someone who’ll give meaning to her day
Reading dirty letters is her way

Leo Dan
a discriminating garbage man
He can’t stand what some throw out
He’ll pick it up and put it back on your front door
Give your garbage back to use once more

On Burgelle Street, we all get to know you
We’ll call you up late to say we’re doing well
but we have nothing to say to you

On Burgelle Street, we all get to know you
We’ll call you up late to say we’re doing well
but we have nothing to say to you

Old Man Gree
throwing bricks at people on the street
and pulling out his teeth in front of you
rolling up the daily news
to give his boy a stiffer point of view

On Burgelle Street, we all get to know you
We’ll call you up late to say we’re doing well
but we have nothing to say to you

credits

from Strange Presence, released November 28, 2012

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Xrisville Guelph, Ontario

The musical archive of writer-composer-visual artist Xristopher Bland.

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