Foundling -- the stunning new effort by internationally acclaimed
singer-songwriter David Gray -- begins with those evocative and
somewhat mysterious words. What follows is an extraordinary song
cycle of rare and timeless power that bears a rather fitting title.
As people today may or may not remember, the word "foundling" is
defined as "an infant found after its unknown parents have
abandoned it." And as Gray puts it with a warm laugh, "Foundling
sort of arrived at my door without my asking it to, so it felt very
appropriate for this album."
In a sense, Foundling also marks another notable arrival -- the
second coming of David Gray's own second coming -- and one that
truly "sprung like a wild orchid" in its own right. By 2005, Gray
had already enjoyed what has been a rather distinguished career as
a singer-songwriter and recording artist, having sold more than 12
million albums, including his global left-field smash, 1998's White
Ladder, which remains the single best selling album in Irish
history. Gray had by this point already won two Ivor Novello
Awards, a Q award, two Brit nominations and a GRAMMY
nomination.
But not a man or artist content to ever rest on his laurels,
Gray decided that the time has come to shake things up in a
significant way. So in 2006, David Gray decided to disband his
longtime backing group, and to attempt to reconnect with his music
before recording his excellent 2009 album Draw The Line with a new
group of players at his studio The Church. "Draw the Line was
essentially about the band, and four people playing together in a
room," says Gray. "But you can't just keep going for unlimited
takes. So on days when I felt everyone was getting a bit worn down
and frayed at the edges -- and that it might be good to give
everyone a little space -- I'd go into the studio on my own or
maybe with one other person. I'd either work on tracks we already
recorded or try to record other songs with just me on piano or
guitar. That's a lot of what eventually became Foundling.
In essence, Foundling became an alternate musical universe to
Draw The Line. As Gray puts it," Foundling was an album done in
slices of time in between band recording sessions. Eventually, I
had the thought of recording and then mixing two separate albums
during the same time period, so I then went back and took a closer
look at the tracks and recorded a few overdubs and attempted to add
a few finishing touches so that they sounded more complete. That's
how Foundling became like a tapestry that I hung on the other side
of The Church. And I kept walking over and making little marks on
it, and before you knew it, what started off as a side project was
holding my attention as well as the main work."
In the end, Foundling looks like the most gorgeous and
minimalist musical tapestry that David Gray has ever created -- one
that alternately suggests the early work of The Band, Randy Newman
and Tom Waits, but without sounding remotely like a piece of
nostalgia. Like the recent productions of T-Bone Burnett, this is
music that seems to exist almost outside of time, yet feels
fantastically modern and stripped of all unnecessary varnish.
"Because I've done so much recording lately, I think you eventually
get braver," says Gray. "You think `I can go even further with this
- I can do even less.' So there's definitely a sense here of
reducing the songs to their absolute bare minimum. It's that core
notion of getting to the gist of the song. On Draw The Line and in
a different way here, I didn't concern myself with trying to use
very current sounds that might date badly. I just focused on
getting the song down by the simplest means possible."
Working this way was ultimately very emancipating for Gray. "We
were very unfussy on this record," he says. "I felt like this was
my private record. I didn't get too picky with the vocals, and I
didn't have to think about things like potential airplay. So I
threw all of that stuff out and it's actually a wonderfully
liberating feeling. You think, `This hasn't got a cat in hell's
chance of getting on the radio, so let's make this the way we feel
it ought to be made. We just made it the way we wanted to."
When it's pointed out that he was always a bit of a left-field
success story, and that Foundling might find a home on the airwaves
simply because it's so good, he laughs and adds, "I could see these
songs doing well at the cinema or maybe on TV because there is a
cinematic quality to some of the stuff. Maybe that could unlock the
record in some way, but it's hard to imagine it getting on the
radio as it stands. But who cares anyway? Fuck it, we love it."
"Frankly, I can't wait for this bloody thing to come out because
I'm still tearing my hair out about what to leave in and not," Gray
adds with a hearty laugh. "It's basically the record I've been
wanting to make for a long time and it's as strong a statement as
White Ladder in its own way. The album is like a stepping off point
for what might happen next. It's like I'm really putting my money
where my mouth is with this one." FOUNDLING: SONG-BY-SONG WITH
DAVID GRAY:
ONLY THE WINE: "Only The Wine" was born out of a little guitar
motif with a slight nod toward "Norwegian Wood." That first line
was key: "Sprung like a wild orchid." I thought that the whole song
sounded like something woody -- something you'd find growing in a
field. When we recorded "Only The Wine," the song had this
beautiful warm sound. Everyone was playing quite tentatively and
innocently because we hadn't settled into that whole "We know what
we're doing" feeling. So this song had the sense I love of players
still reaching for something. FOUNDLING: This was a key track
because of the soundscape of it. It's just a two chord thing, and
yet it feels like new territory to me. For me, "Foundling" is a
sort of a road marker left at the end of the last recording session
to tell me where to start next time around. Like, "Start there next
time and just keep going further out." There's no use trying to
unwrap the lyrics for this song or "Only the Wine" -- it's just
bring your own pictures because that's all I'm creating here, and
make your own meaning too. FORGETTING: This one is self-explanatory
to the point that it would be stupid to explain it when it's so
obvious what it's about. The lyrics came first for a change here.
What happened during this whole period of this recording is that
the joy of words and language and writing came back to me full
force. That's still with me, and I think that's where I'm strongest
and it's where I'll be concentrating a lot of my energies next time
around. So I think there may be a few more lyrics first scenarios
around the corner for me.
GOSSAMER THREAD: This song came to me some time ago, and I just
got this really strong picture of a person, this semi-derelict
person, just drifting from city to city, hanging on to life as if
by a gossamer thread. We all know how that feels sometimes. In
terms of recording, as a piece of playing, it took a lot of effort
to get it all in one take, and by the end of the session we were so
worn out we just put it to one side and didn't listen to it for
months. It was the very last thing we mixed on the record, and when
we put up the faders it was the most pleasant surprise of the whole
mixing session. It sounded great and it just sort of mixed
itself.
IN GOD'S NAME: It's the song I wrote to my friend Bryan Glancy,
an English singer songwriter who also inspired Elbow's record The
Seldom Seen Kid. He was a great character and a dear friend to us
all, and he died shortly after I wrote this song with him in mind.
"In God's Name" became part one, and I wrote another part that will
be an extra track on the album called "Fixative," which together
represent my own little homage to Bryan. A very simple idea and I
don't know how to elaborate on it. What brought the track together
was we got the hurdy gurdy man in to play on it. That's something
you don't get to say every day.
THE OLD CHAIR: When I talk about how minimal Foundling is, I
must remember "The Old Chair" is on there with a huge orchestra
that kicks in at the end. It's a bit early Tom Waits that one, and
proudly so. The song is about old people and in a way it's
definitely a cousin of some of those great songs John Prine's
written like "Hello In There." It's obviously not a very popular
subject for a pop song, with a few exceptions like "Eleanor Rigby."
The reason the song got started was unusual. I was doing some
writing for an animation project to do with these rescue dogs, and
the original working title for the project was "The Old Chair." So
that's where the title came from, even though it had nothing to do
with the final song. Still, I quite like having an assignment to
work on, it can change the parameters of your thinking in a very
useful way.
WE COULD FALL IN LOVE AGAIN TONIGHT: Well, this is a very
romantic song, and I haven't written many of those in recent years.
And in this context, it was almost gutsy to feature some breathy
saxophone on this track. I was thinking of "When Teardrops Fall" by
Bob Dylan from Oh Mercy. Or maybe Stan Getz's saxophone on "Girl
From Ipanema." That was what I wanted there. Sometimes I like to
record without using bass because I feel you can get a starker more
emotional result. Bass can sometimes normalize things and make a
song seem too comfortable and familiar.
HOLDING ON: This came from the session when the new band first
came together -- the same session as the title track from Draw The
Line was recorded. Neil MacColl's guitar part here is beautiful.
I've written a song called "Hold On," "Hold On To Nothing," and now
"Holding On," so I'm getting some grief from the boys, like, "Write
some decent titles, Dave."
A NEW DAY AT MIDNIGHT: This song actually dates back to the
album A New Day At Midnight from 2002. That' when I wrote it, and
it gave its title to that album. This is the oldest recording
that's on the album. I kept this one back because I thought there
was a better moment for the song, and this is it. I'm getting some
grief about this title too because it's the same as the 2002 album.
It's a simple, uplifting kind of song, and I'm very happy about the
horn arrangement, which I think came out great.
WHEN I WAS IN YOUR HEART: This song I wrote a good few years
ago, and it just had something. We did it up as a band version
first and I felt we hadn't really taken it any further, so then I
stripped it back. Lestyn Polson, my producer, had so much to do
with the colour of this record and the soundscape of it. He did a
brilliant job of presenting the simple things. We used a lot of old
reverb effects, and you can hear a good example on the vocals in
this track. A strange, quirky little song, and I'm glad it's
finally going to see the light of day.
DAVEY JONES' LOCKER: This whole song came pretty much fully
formed out of a soundcheck jam. It virtually wrote itself. Then
afterwards I went back and added a few more lines to it, and tidied
up a few loose ends. Then I got the same people from onstage into
the studio and we got it down 'live' in a couple of takes. I can't
really unravel the imagery too much without making it sound trite,
but the lyric describes heading down under the surface of things
into a strange and dreamy world
