Craig's Mailbag
Send us your questions for Craig or the band and we'll see if we can get some answers for you.
What is the inspiration behind the song Gypsy Nights? I think that it is a gorgeous song!!!!! Julie Taylor
Hey, thanks, Julie! It was actually inspired by one of those age old questions, "Does she love me, or not?" That's the short version of what inspired it! Do you hear any of that in the music? I think it's still one of my most romantic songs I have ever written (at least for me anyway) Winterflame, Summers End, Just Friends, Holding Back the Years, and Autumn Blue are sorta like that for me too. I often wonder if anybody else ever feels the same thing when they hear the songs as I do when I play them. For me, Gypsy Nights seems to express something about the promise of that one-great-love-of-your-life out there ...that once in a lifetime one, the unreal one you dreamt about or heard about in a fairytale. Maybe there's a little of that storybook mystery, passion, adventure, and mischief in the inspiration for this song that comes through when you hear it now, and maybe a sort of longing in the melody and guitar playing that puts some of these feelings into music that maybe I could never put into words. Or not? That's the short version of what inspired it!
Here's the long version, remember, you asked for it! :)
OK, the inspiration goes way back to a time long ago when I was seeing a girl occasionally that truly seemed like such a perfect match that it would have given anybody pause to wonder, "could this be the one", even if maybe she didn't ever think so (ha ha). In spite of our obvious chemistry, I was young and certainly not convinced yet either, especially since my lifestyle was so flighty and gypsy-like being in a rock band and always traveling on the road! So, we always seemed to be separated by something or other, more often than we were together. When we were together again, we just picked up where we left off and right into instant fun, instant bliss! Though I did often wonder why if something could feel so right when we were together could it in fact feel right together forever? Especially after all the interruptions and endless road trips with my own band of Jefferson Gypsies, etc. I think perhaps I'm not the only who has ever wondered about the wisdom of long distance romances along any of our own road trips to happiness, right? So some of that "wonder" is part of the inspiration and mood of this song for me, can you hear any of that in there?
That's only part of the song inspiration though. Imagine the inspiration you might get seeing Venus whispering to Mars in a magical early twilight? The planets Venus and Mars in a rare conjunction in the heavens...all within the science of astronomy, but also the symbols of Love and War whispering something heavenly to each other after all that has kept them apart for so long. Somewhere between science and superstition there is an unlikely union of heavenly bodies, so to speak, after the fire like union between the day and night in their inevitable head-long rush to meet each other every day forever and ever. It later gives birth to an infinite sky exploding with all the other stars, planets, and whole Milky Way, a night that is always new and holds infinite possibilities. A night like that was part of the inspiration for Gypsy Nights.
I hope my guitar strings, and the inspiration behind this humble, VERY humble little love song may touch somebody else's own heart strings a little and remind us all that we are not alone and anything is possible. Maybe remind people of the timeless feeling in us all that may have inspired some of those great legends and love stories. The star-crossed lovers destined to be together no matter what separates and challenges them, Romeo and Juliet, the two kids in the movie The Titanic, Robin Hood and what's-her-name and MJ and the pet chimpanzee (oops, sorry!).
Maybe you'll be able to hear now how this song was also inspired by those old stories that inspired our own childhood imaginations and that we now read to our own children at night. When I close my eyes and play the song to this day, I can still see gallant knights on horseback, their armor shining in the sun; colorful crested flags snapping in the wind along with the distant sound of victorious trumpeters and nearby intimate flutes. Those big festive goblets of whatever they drank back then with those giant BBQ turkey drumstick things, the time of "All for one and one for all," while somewhere caldrons still steamed, sorcerers still schemed, and chivalry was still alive and kicking. Where seers and fortune tellers still saw and foretold, and valiant heroes outnumbered dragons, rescued fair maidens, and whisked them away upon powerful white stallions into the sunset surely bound for happily ever after! Call me crazy, but I still hear that in this little acoustic guitar song and see it in my imagination, that's one reason why music is still so magical and fun for me. Even if maybe I'm the only one who sees this stuff in the "theater of the mind."
Hey, Julie, in case you never noticed, I'm sometimes a hopeless romantic when it comes to some of my song inspirations! Sorry, but seeing the collie and hearing the theme song from all those old B&W Lassie episodes still makes me misty-eyed, ok! So, ah, Julie, aren't you glad you asked?
Wait, there's still more inspiration for Gypsy Nights to document here! (Geez, the song is only 4 1/2 minutes long, but reading the inspiration behind it is like watching the Titanic; only in slow motion but this is my favorite and last part of the inspiration, it sort of ties it all together for me.)
I went to a real life Gypsy fortune teller (actually an old lady in a Volkswagen bus parked in front of a big fat hot sun, soon to be setting in the Pacific Ocean) her old VW bus was parked near the beach, with a picture of a hand in the window and a faded hand-painted wooden sign outside, which decreed to all who passed by "Palms Read/Fortunes Told." Hey, who else ya gonna ask about something like this, ya know? She had almost no blue color left her milky-way-like-eyes and she seemed to look at you deep into a place that bypassed your own eyes altogether...into another world. It kinda made me wonder how she got a California drivers license!
She had stuffed cats, bats, live snakes, birds, strange things in jars, crystal balls, magic lamps, candles, and all those types of things, all this in her beat up VW gypsy bus with its' peace sign on the front, tie-died curtains, and a Grateful Dead sticker. So long ago, .so soooo long ago! Anyway, in the long lazy shadows of that late afternoon, and with the heat from this strangely warm sunset, beaming orange through her dusty widows, little particles of lint, feathers or fairy dust swirling about; with the sun and sky reflecting off the chrome of my bike outside, my heart pounding in my chest and practically leaping out of my throat, I was just one more to ask her the timeless question. "Gypsy lady, Gypsy queen, seer of things; there's this girl I'm thinking of. She must have the whole milky way on her lips because I saw stars every time that I kissed her! My question to you, beyond the illusion of modern science and from deep within your own magical domain, is can you tell me more about her? Should we meet again? Will we remain in or out of love?"
So there ya go, Julie! That's pretty much the dang inspiration for Gypsy Nights in a nut shell (albeit a large nut shell). You can call me a nut case now too after all that, but those inspirations for that song have always stayed with me after all these years and still come up for me whenever I play it. I think it's all in there in the music for anybody else to "see" too, at least I think it is anyway. I wrote it, so I should at least know what all inspired it ya know!
Now you actually have a few pages from my own musical diary written down in black and white whether you like it or not (ha ha). There's a little poem on Acoustic Highway that touches on this song's inspiration too BTW, and now thanks to your simple question, you have the LONG and winding road version, too! What does the song inspire in you when you close your eyes and listen to it, anything like this at all? What is it about the song that speaks to you in some way and what does it say? I would love to know your thoughts either way someday. Either that or as my son would joke, "Ahh, I think it's just another one of those, ahh, songs about the, ahh, heh heh, the Three Musketeers or something, Beavis! :)
Peace! Craig
Hi Craig! First, I got my Carvin Bolt Super guitar, thanks man! I first became aware of your acoustic work from Third Force, you seem to work very well with William Aura and the guys. My question here is how much input do you have when working with Third Force on the guitar licks? Do they present you with what they have for the song and allow you to improvise the guitar parts, or is it where they ask you to do a certain riff with little of your own interpretation? Also, can you give us fans that play guitar, info on what equipment you use, such as effects in general and pickup selection for the Bolt on "Cafe Carnival" and/or "Innocent Kiss"? Dennis Dietz.
Hi Dennis!
A little of both, it really depends on the song and how its laid out and whether I'm playing a solid melody or theme, which they often have worked out. Or, just doing an occasional lick here and there, which we work out together, or me jammin' the whole song...just me as the lead instrument or a long solo, which is all just off the top of my head. The first song we did together was like that, I think it was "We Should be Together" but now I'm not sure! Darn, memory questions!
Dude, I so apologize on the pickup settings, I used to remember them and then started to write them down as I got older so I wouldn't forget, but now I forget to write them down! I often use a pre-amp and FX device for my guitar in the studio that Tom Sholz from Boston custom built for me 20 years ago. My FX are mostly stereo chorus, timed delay, and reverb. Live I use Carvin power amps and speakers and the POD preamp, I also use the smaller Carvin Tubeamps and mic them with a Shure SM 57 for a lot of the electric solos. In the studio, string-wise, I always use Dean Markley and for acoustic, I use the new Alchemys they make, the Gold Bronze and the Gold Phos. I still use their Cryogenic Blue Steel on both acoustic and electric, and I used their flatwounds on Shadow and Light a lot. The acoustic gauges on acoustic are: Gold, ML, 12, 16, 25, 32, 42, 54; Blue Steel, ML, 12, 15, 25, 34, 44, 54. Flatwounds, Reg 12, 16, 22, 32, 42, 52, electric is: Blue Steel, Reg, 10, 13, 17, 26, 36, 46.
I'm going to use some nylon strings on a new Carvin I had made especially for this CD, the gauges aren't listed for these Dean Markley Classica Series nylon strings, but it's their standard tension Signature Series. What strings are you using, Dennis? Next time I see you at a show I will turn you on to a set of whatever I'm using on tour for your electric and acoustic. I'm pretty sure I will stick to the Blue Steels for live, BTW -my picks are Jimmy Dunlop Heavy's when I'm not using my fingers or my teeth!
Peace!
Craig