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(in order of their live debuts)
Zoë – lyrics & music: Ely
I’m willing to bet this was the first of Christine’s songs that any of us learned. I just remember it always being there. We debuted it at the first show and played it at probably every gig until the very end. I don’t think the song really defined us, but it was a constant through it all.
Since it was one of the earliest songs Christine wrote, it’s very simple. 3 chords, E – B – A, repeating for the whole song. The different sections are just the chords played in different ways. But it’s 3 chords all the way through. The simplicity gave us all space to have fun with. I liked to put in a bass lick from Rush’s Spirit of Radio into the intro.
The song really didn’t change too much over the years we played it. We quickly got it down solid, so after that every performance was effortless. The only time it ever changed was one time in practice Christine, just goofing off, started to play the song in 6/8 instead of the usual 4/4. This caught our attention big time and we decided to try the song in 6/8. It sounded pretty cool and really made it into a different thing. We only played it once live in this arrangement and then I guess Christine decided to drop it. I actually preferred it in 6/8, since nearly all of our songs were in 4/4. I guess it wasn’t meant to be. The lyrics are obviously relationship-based, like nearly all Christine’s lyrics are (a few exceptions are out there). It’s an OK song, it was fun to play, but I got really sick of playing it every show. I still like to hear it on occasion, though.
Don’t Be Afraid To Cry – lyrics & music: Ely
Another simple one, almost the exact same thing as Zoë, this time it was a lot slower. We only played it for a few months then Christine decided she didn’t like it and didn’t want to play it anymore. We would always try to convince her to bring it back in the repertoire, but she never would. It’s not that it’s that great of a song, but I think we just wanted to play some different material than the usuals we always did.
I Know You – lyrics & music: Ely
Another staple from the beginning that lasted for the course of the whole thing. Another basic song with a 3 chord intro/verse (D – A – G). Christine added a chord for the chorus (Em) to have just the smallest bit of minor-ness in there. Not much of a change for the solo, only a modification of the main riff.
More relationship lyrics. This song became more fun to play after we recorded it for our demo. Steve, the engineer, suggested the guitars drop out for the verses and leave it just me and Wiley as the backing. That really helped the song out and made it stand out (in our repertoire) a bit.
Confusion – lyrics & music: Ely
Getting better here. I like the intro/verses; it’s pretty chilled out. The riff has a nice flow to it. And of course I did some cool bass harmonics and my cool fretless impression; always nice. If we’re going in order with the songs here, we get another instance of some good minor-ness in the verses. Verse chords are Bm – A and then for the chorus Christine threw in another small change and made the riff D – A – Em – A. It’s not much, but it stretched things a bit. The big change came from Bryan to change keys (down to C) for the guitar solo and then back up to D for the rest of the song. Fancy stuff.
I like this song and it was the best one to date. The lyrics are still all about relationships, but the whole thing worked really nicely. I liked playing this one.
Where We Should Be – lyrics & music: Ely
Hey, we’ve gone reggae! It wasn’t ever Christine’s intention to write a reggae song, but it was either Bryan or Wiley who came up with the idea to make this a reggae. I thought (still do) that it was a great idea and it added some much needed eclecticism.
It’s a really simple song with the usual type of lyrics. My favorite part was my bassline. I was pleasantly surprised when I came up with it and it had a wonderful bounce to it. This song was in our repertoire a lot at the beginning but as we had more material it started showing up less and less on setlists. I know some of our fans specifically liked this one, but I guess Christine didn’t like it too much. Too bad, I did.
Sunshine – lyrics & music: Dunn
An excellent Cheevy song gets presented to Echo Juliet and turns into a monster. I think Wiley was the kick that this song really needed. Not only was Wiley from the School of Metal (like myself), but he also had a real good concept of Groove and he threw both parts into this one and helped it be possibly our best song. Obviously it doesn’t hurt that it’s a very well written song to begin with.
For the EJ version of this we rocked it up and turned it into (I think) our only jamming song. My bass solo came into its full self and after my solo Wiley and I did a heavy metal breakdown underneath a modified riff that Bryan created. We didn’t go crazy with this like we would in 3PO; we kept it to a simple guitar solo – bass solo – breakdown – verse. Occasionally, whenever Manuel would sit in with us, we’d do some mild percussion ‘solo’ after mine. We worked up two versions of the song the regular version (solos) and the shortened version (the Cheevy one) where we went back into the 3rd verse after Bry’s solo. We would choose the short version if we had time constraints or wanted to squeeze some other material in. I obviously preferred the long version. Sunshine was absolutely one of the highlights of the Echo Juliet live experience.
Cricket’s Song – lyrics & music: Ely
Written by Christine for her friend Cricket, this was a throwback to the simpler time of 3 chords per song. Since the song was so simple, I decided to ‘make it more interesting’ and do some bass tapping on the verses. I was trying to compensate for the simpleness of the song by (hopefully) taking the audience’s attention away from the song and say “gee, wow, check out that bassist! He’s tapping on his bass, isn’t that cool!” Yeah, that’s what you get when you have a bassist who listens to King Crimson all day long and throw him in a pop band.
This was our most pop song that we had, and the chorus consisted of a bunch of “La’s” repeated over and over. Whee! Even for it’s simplicity, it was a fun song to play and I wish it would’ve stayed around longer than it did.
That’s The Way It Goes – lyrics & music: Ely
Another simple one, using C – F – G. Pretty typical stuff here: slow verse and then upbeat chorus, the bridge was a nice change. I don’t remember if Bryan soloed in it or not. One of the earlier songs and it didn’t stay in the repertoire too long. It’s not that distinctive, so it kinda got buried in with the rest of our stuff and eventually was forgotten about.
Fade Away – lyrics & music: Ely
When Christine first brought it to us, it was the usual stuff. I guess we heard something more in it and almost immediately Wiley and I made the intro & verse pretty pounding. The song eventually evolved into the perfect show opener with Wiley pounding away for a bit before the rest of us came in. I really like the drive this one had, and it had a great feel all the way through.
For some reason, Christine could never play and sing at the same time during the chorus, so she’d always stop playing after the first chord of the chorus. It’s interesting to hear this on the live tapes since her acoustic guitar was a big part of the sound. Later in the band’s life she’d use her electric on this. I really like this one and I always had fun playing it.
College Radio – lyrics & music: Dunn
Brian wrote this one in the fall of ’95 and originally presented it to me as a new Cheevy song. I initially wasn’t too impressed with it, but I was willing to give it a shot with Cheevy. We tried it a few times and it never clicked so Bryan and I agreed that it would be better suited as an EJ song. This one has a strange history in that it never really gelled until we did it in 3 Penny Opera. We played it quite a bit in EJ, but it took Wiley and I a long time until we were satisfied with our parts. I think Wiley never was satisfied with what he did on it.
Perfect – lyrics: Ely; music: Dunn
Perfect was a pretty simple song, but one we kept in the repertoire for a while. A ballad consisting of only 3 or 4 chords, this was the first instance of an EJ song getting a co-writing credit. Christine had the words, but no music, so Bryan took them and pretty quickly came up with the music for this one. I thought this song was decent and, along with Still, one of our most purely ‘ballad’ songs. I think Bryan had a nice solo spot in this (doing his best Eric Clapton impression). Years after we left EJ, Bryan wrote some new lyrics to this and called it (I think) May the Road Rise to Meet You. After the inaugural play-in for me, I don’t believe he ever did anything else with it. Not the greatest, but decent enough.
Don’t Let Me Be Alone Tonight – lyrics: Dunn; music: Talbert
Look out! It’s a monster! This was a song that was played often by Miniver Cheevy, but it never really clicked with that band. The catalyst was absolutely Wiley. Wiley approached the song with a more bluesy and groove-based feel and it really brought out all the potential in the music. In EJ, we added actual dynamics to this song and pretty quickly it became one of our favorites. I always loved playing it and Bryan always had a great solo in it. I still think that the 2nd half of the solo with the climax and back into the verse is such a spine-tingling event. I love how our little pop band could play the hell out of this pure blues song. I think if this song had more exposure, we could have seen some cover versions of it floating around Austin. I know a lot of the blues singers in town would’ve tore this up. As it happens, we were the only ones who did.
Waiting in the Cold – lyrics: Ely; music: Koepp
Another different collaboration in the band here. Wiley had written the music many years before and evidently the song kept being past from band to band until it found its rightful ‘home’. For all I know, he’s still looking for it. Wiley brought this ballad to the group and Christine wrote the words. It’s been so long since I’ve heard Christine’s version of this; I totally forgot the words. I still remember how to play the music; it’s a pretty simple thing, but still interesting enough to stay in the set for a long time. I’m glad we had a ‘Koepp’ credit in the songwriting, but it really wasn’t the best thing we did. Definitely wasn’t the worst though. It really didn’t move me either way, but I didn’t mind too much playing it.
Bill – lyrics & music: Ely
Wow. I said a lot about this one in the bio but never fear, I always have more to say. This is a great song and my favorite one Christine wrote. This song was not only important to the band, but also important to Christine as a songwriter. Every song before this one that Christine wrote (except for Cricket Song) was about 1 subject: love/relationships/affection whatever. Love songs basically. I do think that pop music favors love songs more than it should and I think that love should just be one of the subjects that is sung about, not just the only one.
So, I was personally very excited when Christine brought this to the band. At the inaugural play-in, she strapped on her electric guitar (a first, as she’d always played every song on her acoustic since the beginning), hit the distortion and sang this song that had nothing to do with love or relationships. The lyrics are about Bill Watterson, the creator of Calvin and Hobbes, and some possible conversations with him in regards to his then announcement of the ending of Calvin and Hobbes cartoons. Christine is a huge C&H fan (like the rest of the band is as well) and it obviously was an important part in her life. She really didn’t know why Watterson wanted to stop doing the cartoon, so she put out some possible theories of why he did it. To me, as a fellow lyricist and songwriter, it’s very refreshing when someone writes about something they feel very passionate about, without having to rely on clichéd subject matter or phrases. Christine really raised the bar for herself and the band with this song.
Musically it was an improvement too. Like I said, this was the first time that Christine ever used her electric on one of the songs and the first one with distortion all over the place. Before Bill, we were just a pop band; with this one we really crossed into that ‘rock’ world and even did some heavy-ish stuff at that. Nearly all of her songs before this were simple 3 or 4 chord things with not much variation. Yes there still are some I-IV-V riffs in here, but from a chordal standpoint the music, esp. the intro and verse riffs are much more advanced than just those 3 chords (E-B-A in this case). It gave us 3 guys more room to work with, it allowed us to do some heavier stuff (and let Wiley use his Tommy Lee influence) and it provided a perfect opening song for our CD. Bill was a fantastic song to play live and I never got tired of it.
Adam and Eve – lyrics & music: Dunn
I’m not totally sure if Bryan wrote this with Christine in mind for the female vocal part, but it was written for a male and female to sing. For the record (since I’m the keeper of such knowledge) this song is not a rip-off of Barenaked Ladies’ Be My Yoko Ono. Both songs are similar, but I can guarantee Bryan had not even heard BNL when this was written.
A&E is a pretty simple song, but it’s very happy and bouncy. This was another tune that brought out a different side to the band. I liked having a song where Bry and Christine would swap vocal lines. I always liked Bryan’s voice (and the more time marches on, the more people get to hear it) and this was really the first glimpse the EJ audience got of it. The best thing about this song is its bounce. I quite miss playing this one.
Still – lyrics & music: Ely
This one stayed in the repertoire for a while, but I honestly can’t remember anything about it right now except that Christine used a capo for it. It was another 3 or 4 chord ballad with love-song lyrics, but I remember liking to play it more than some of the other ballads. I think we recorded a studio version of this when we did a session at UT. I never heard those tapes so I unfortunately don’t have a copy of the tape. But like I said, this was a pretty good song that never made it on a recording. I’d love to hear it again to refresh my memory of it.
Imaginary Girlfriend – lyrics & music: Dunn
This was the only song Bryan got to sing on his own during EJ and it’s really only a joke song. OK, I admit it, I really like this song and loved to play it. A very simple 3 or 4 chord song about the best girlfriend Bry’s ever had, the one he made up in his head. The lyrics are very humorous, the music is bouncy, and the crowd always loved hearing it (even requesting it on occasion). Christine never played on it, probably because she never bothered to learn it. For its tenure in EJ we never altered it, so it always sounded the same. I remember the first few times we played it live Bry did a kazoo solo, but that soon got dropped in favor of the more economical guitar solo. I hope Bryan will sometime bring this back out, as I’m a big fan of it.
Her – lyrics & music: Ely
Nice song. It hadn’t been in the repertoire too long before we recorded it, so that probably made it the ‘newest’ song on the CD. I can’t remember if it was begun before Nothing, but we debuted it about 4 months before Nothing. Most likely it was. We’ll have to ask Christine for sure. Anyway, I like this one and I enjoyed playing it live. I love my volume swells at the beginning, as well as Bry’s “Wish You Were Here” lick. There’s honestly not a lot I can say about this. I think the studio version is pretty much definitive. For some fans it was the best song on the CD and it’s easy to see why they think that way; good song.
Nothing – lyrics & music: Ely
This was another attempt at reggae, although less pronounced than Where We Should Be. A much better song than WWSB and another bouncy one in our repertoire. I thought I did a really cool bass line, and I also really dug Bryan’s guitar playing on it. One thing about my bass line I quite enjoy was my insertion of a Yes bass lick in there. Yeah, I like putting prog references into these pop songs. Another thing I love about this was Wiley’s “Tommy Lee” drum part on the pre-chorus, very cool stuff.
This song started to show Christine’s growing confidence in herself and her songs. This is one of her better songs absolutely. Again, I loved playing it live because it had such a great energy. This one goes into the record books as being the only EJ song that had a curse word in the live version. Cracks me up. Cool song.
Ascension – lyrics & music: Dunn
I’m including this since it was played at an Echo Juliet gig, by 2 members of the band, but it’s not really Echo Juliet. Bryan and I did this once, acoustically, at Coffee Plantation on 6-29-96. We did our Coffee Plantation gigs acoustically (well, since I didn’t own an acoustic bass I was electrified) with this and the following Cycle being a small break for the “Bryan and James Show”. This song was originally done by Miniver Cheevy and it was at my insistence that we played it for the one show. I still love this song and wish 3PO could’ve done it, but I guess it wasn’t meant to be. As I recall it was a decent version, but it surely didn’t set the crowd afire and I doubt anyone remembered it after the show.
Cycle – lyrics & music: Dunn
The only live performance of this by Echo Juliet was at the aforementioned gig and this also was played by Bryan and myself only. This isn’t as good of a song as Ascension is, but it probably got a better reaction because it’s upbeat. This was a staple of both Cheevy and 3 Penny Opera, but it never was played in full by Echo Juliet. We tried doing it a few times in practice, but I guess Christine had no interest in it. As played by just Bryan and myself, it’s not that exciting and doesn’t sound anywhere near as good as it does with a full band (esp. Wiley) behind it.
Sympathy – lyrics: Ely; music: Ely, Hines
This was another one that Christine wrote using the electric guitar with distortion and played live that way too. It’s a pretty good song, but it never really got to become as good as it should have been since we only played it for a few months and in that time we didn’t have it under our belts long enough to be able to really nail it. Plus I guess the fact that the band was dissolving and 3 of us didn’t want to be in the band during this time didn’t help it too much.
I purposely wrote a very difficult and busy bass line for this which I loved playing. I had been keeping it more or less simple for the past few songs and I thought a complex one would work on here. I could be wrong, I don’t know. Regardless, I’m not sure if I ever played my part accurately since it was so difficult. For our first few live performances of this someone, either Bry or Wiley, wanted to put into the middle of this the middle section from John Mellencamp’s Pink Houses. I’m not a “Cougar” fan, so I thought it was rather stupid, but the other 3 loved it so I got outvoted. I still think it’s way cheesy and that’s probably why it only lasted a few times and then we went without it. It happened just before the guitar solo and my only writing contribution to the EJ canon. I came up with the riff for the guitar solo. I don’t know if it’s really a true writing contribution, but since I’m doing this (and I always considered it as such) I say I helped out. Anyway, this had the potential to be a really good song but we played it so sloppily and for such a short amount of time that it never came close to its potential.
Something About You – lyrics & music: Ely
Bass solo! Although barely audible on the tape I’m currently listening to, it’s there dammit. Unless we ever did an extended version of Sunshine, this was my only soloing in the group. I think it was usually in Ab, but I recall I rarely stayed in key for it. Good idea of having a bass solo, but this song wasn’t the right one for it, and I should have played it ‘normal’ anyway besides trying to be atonal and all that.
This one was brought to the band at the same time as Sympathy so I always think of these two songs together. This one is more poppy so that’s why it sounded tighter than Sympathy; it was easier to learn. It’s a pretty good song and another one that no doubt would have improved the more we played it. As it turns out it only came out a few times, so the audience didn’t get much of a chance to appreciate it.
Mr. Raleigh’s Dilemma – lyrics & music: Dunn
The last song we debuted with EJ, and I think we only played it live twice in the group. Of course it’d be a huge song for 3 Penny Opera, but it was just a hiccup in Echo Juliet. It probably was kinda rough, and I don’t think it was the right kind of song for Christine to sing. I guess that Bryan had just recently written it and both he and I wanted to do it in the band. I remember it as being kinda tentative and of course it never had the chance to develop into the great song it became once 3PO got a hold of it.
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