White Car

Download “White Car”

Story

Truth be told, this could have gone in the Musical Doodlings section if I’d felt like coming up with a third category just for it. This was part of my final project for my Recording Techniques class in 2005. I’m of the opinion that Yes’s Drama is extremely underrated as a whole, and that the Trevor Horn/Geoff Downes lineup could have produced another album of the caliber of Close to the Edge if they hadn’t imploded after the tour for this album. “White Car” is the second and shortest song on Drama, at under a minute and a half. My stated goal in covering the song was to go out of my comfort in some fashion. To that end, while the instrumentation is all bass (Which is nothing new for me; see “Song for a Bishop” or “Swerve!“), my vocals attempt to imitate Trevor Horn, who was himself essentially trying to imitate Jon Anderson on the album. The result is that I sing all four lines of the song in a decided falsetto; from what I’ve seen, falsettos in general seem to drive females wild, so maybe this isn’t a bad thing. My Recording Techniques professor actually remarked that my voice had a choir boy like quality to it, which if you’re not a choir boy is actually very difficult to do (Adults, both male and female, tend to add a vibrato that isn’t present in youth singers).

Lyrics

(Click Here. Note that both Trevor and myself clearly say “drive” and not “throw”, despite what the lyrics say.)