HELLO.
feeling extra inspired and excited tonight..was a long day and we got off to a late start as far as tracking something new cuz we couldn't make up our minds this morning about a tempo thing in a song tentatively titled beautiful feeling..got it worked out eventually and were stoked and moved on

now for the rest of the evening, tim and i were kind of dreading the two songs we would go on to do cuz they already felt so old but agreed they were the only two we'd previously performed with the group and should at least give them a shot since they'd become faves of some of the members (was that a run on sentence?!)..i probably wouldn't share this news if the tracks hadn't turned out great (or unless we def decided to ditch) but finally, decent recordings and a new approach= the songs came out suprisingly well....it was so rewarding to have such doubt on a song and then have it turn around and take on a completely new life in the studio, art happening spontaneously..i'll give ya a hint, while it was never a fave of mine, it was ironically one of the best, immediate lyrics tim has ever written in my opinion and so i encouraged him to give it a shot.."you will make it right, you were misunderstood" "now you know, you're beautiful, you always wondered"...one has to hear the delivery to appreciate such simple words..john (producer if ya haven't caught that yet) was a believer in the track and had mentioned he was hearing a ziggy stardust approach, drop all the electric guitars and go acoustic for one, slow stuff down..little did he know when he first told us that back in dallas we would end up with the one and only mike garson playing piano on the album..so tonight, it happened, the track known to most of you as "younger yesterday" became a top contender for the album..forget what ya knew about this song and start over...when annie and the boys first started messing with the new "feel" tim looked miserable, so stuck on the old melody and approach he couldn't get past it..it was hard cuz i knew he wanted me to agree and i just couldn't, i could imagine this catchy pop tune rediscovered and could hear a very vulnerable tim that vocally was so moving to us all...so i ran up to the house and asked mike to come on out and observe and be ready to jump in, after all , who better than him to bring the idea of a ziggy stardust tune to life..within minutes it started to happen, a magical experience...did a couple of takes while things were fresh and got it! tonight, converted!

we have ten in the bag and a few to go..cool too cuz they're all ones we really like collectively..so now we're getting into the home stretch of phase one and it feels good. in a couple of days we'll get started with the guitars and keys.

anyone seen aristocrats? it's on in the backgroud and i'm getting pretty distracted..if you've seen it, you know why :)

goodnight.
julie

p.s. if i have typos, please forgive..too tired to proofread! waiting for annie to tell me if proofread is one or two words..pretty sick, we all sit (during breaks or end of night) only a few feet from each other and we instant message ach other..seriously, even at breakfast we find ourselves sitting at the same table and im'ing...crazy!