Robbie Robertson + Daniel Lanois

[1943-2023]     

                         ←(«Storyville»_1991)→ [lyrics]

♥  ‘Somewhere Down The Crazy River’  ⇓

Yeah, I can see it now – The distant red neon shivered in the heat

I was feeling like a stranger in a strange land

You know where people play games with the night

God, it was too hot to sleep

I followed the sound of a jukebox coming from up the levee

All of a sudden I could hear somebody whistling

From right behind me

I turned around and she said,

«Why do you always end up down at Nick’s Cafe?»

I said «I don’t know, the wind just kind of pushed me this way.»

She said «Hang the rich.»

Catch the blue train To places never been before

Look for me somewhere down the crazy river – Somewhere down the crazy river

Catch the blue train  All the way to Kokomo

You can look for me somewhere down the crazy river

Somewhere down the crazy river

 

Take a picture of this – The fields are empty, abandoned ’59 Chevy 

Laying in the back seat listening to Little Willie John

Yea, that’s when time stood still

You know, I think I’m gonna go down to Madam X

And let her read my mind

She said «That Voodoo stuff don’t do nothing for me.»

I’m a man with a clear destination – I’m a man with a broad imagination

You fog the mind, you stir the soul – I can’t find, … no control

Catch the blue train  To places never been before

Look for me somewhere down the crazy river – Somewhere down the crazy river

Catch the blue train  All the way to Kokomo

You can find me somewhere down the crazy river

Somewhere down the crazy river

 

Wait, did you hear that – Oh this is sure stirring up some ghosts for me

She said «There’s one thing you’ve got to learn – Is not to be afraid of it.»

I said «No, I like it, I like it, it’s good.»

She said «You like it now  But you’ll learn to love it later.»

I been spellbound – falling in trances

I been spellbound – falling in trances

You give me shivers – chills and fever . . .

I been spellbound – somewhere. . .

Somewhere . . .

         ⇔ [lyrics]

♦  NATIVE AMERICAN   ⇓  ‘STOMP DANCE (UNITY)‘←

In circles we gather  –  Moonlight fires are kindled
Sending it back   –   We just make it go back

Beating hearts, beating hearts
Come as one, come as one
This is Indian country – This is Indian country

Together we dance  –  All the first nations
There’s no chance  we ever gonna give up

Beating hearts, beating hearts
Come as one, come as one
This is Indian country – This is Indian country

(…Intertribal…)

Going home, going home
To a nation, six nations
To all the faces I did not know

Beating hearts, beating hearts
Come as one, come as one
This is Indian country – This is Indian country

Ongwehonwe – (…Intertribal…) – Haudenosaune

♥  →  ‘Ghost Dance’  ⇓

Crow has brought the message  to the children of the sun
for the return of the buffalo  and for a better day to come

You can kill my body  –  You can damn my soul
for not believing in your god  and some world down below

You don’t stand a chance  against my prayers
You don’t stand a chance  against my love
They outlawed the Ghost Dance
but we shall live again,  we shall live again

 

My sister above  –  She has red paint
She died at Wounded Knee  like a later day saint

You got the big drum in the distance
blackbird in the sky
That’s the sound that you hear when the buffalo cry

You don’t stand a chance  against my prayers
You don’t stand a chance  against my love
They outlawed the Ghost Dance
but we shall live again,  we shall live again

 

Crazy Horse was a mystic  –  He knew the secret of the trance
And Sitting Bull the great apostle  of the Ghost Dance

Come on Comanche  –  Come on Blackfoot
Come on Shoshone   –   Come on Cheyenne

We shall live again

Come on Arapaho – Come on Cherokee
Come on Paiute   –   Come on Sioux

We shall live again 

♥  →  ‘Golden Feather’   ⇓

I think I’ll go on back to Shenandoah
She said that she’d meet me by the fork in the road
I jump start my one eyed Ford
I’m heading for the pow-wow
I follow red path that leads to you

(chorus)
I gave my love a golden feather
I gave my love a heart of stone
And when you find a golden feather
It means you’ll never lose your way back home

Should I paint my face
Should I pierce my skin
Does this make me a pagan
Sweating out my sins
We ate the sacred mushroom
And waded in the water
Howling like coyotes
At the naked moon

(chorus)

In the autumn night
When there’s no wind blowin’
I could hear the stars falling in the dark
When you find what’s worth keeping
With a breath of kindness
Blow the rest away

(chorus)

♦→  ‘Unbound’  ⇓

With eyes of fire
No one can see
The smoke from the sweet grass
Covers me

I am drawn  –  I am drawn to her
Like a moth to flame
She leads me down
Unbound

I am lost  –  I am lost
Has anybody seen me
I am lost

Oh nothing is forgotten  –  Only left behind
Wherever I am  –  She leads me down
Unbound

No borders – No fences – No walls
No borders – No fences – Unbound

Oh, listen for the night chant …

Like a moth to flame – She leads me down
Unbound

No borders – No fences – Unbound . . .

♥   → ‘MAHK JCHI’  ⇓

A hundred years have passed  –  Yet I hear the distant beat of my father’s drums.
I hear his drums throughout the land.  –  His beat I feel within my heart.
The drum shall beat  so my heart shall beat. –  And I shall live a hundred thousand years . . .

Mahk jchi tahm buooi yahmpi gidi
Mahk jchi taum buooi kan spewa ebi
Mahk jchi tham buooi yahmpi gidi
Mahk jchi taum buooi kan spewa ebi

 

Mahmpi wah hoka yee monk
Tahond tani kiyee tiyee
Gee we-me eetiyee
Nanka yaht yamoonieah wajitse 

. . . Nanka yaht yamoomieah wajitse . . .

♥ → ‘Peyote Healing‘  ⇓  (Native American)

 

Wani wachiyelo Ate omakiyayo               (Father help me I want to live)

Atay nimichikun                                             (Father you have done this)

Oshiya chichiyelo                                            (Humbly have pity on me)

Wani wachiyelo Atay omakiyayo            (Father help me I want to live)

Wani wachiyelo Atay                                        (Father I want to live)

♥   ‘IT IS A GOOD DAY TO DIE’  ⇓

The general rode for sixteen days – The horses were thirsty and tired

On the trail of a renegade chief – One he’d come to admire

The soldiers hid behind the hills that surrounded the village

And he rode down to warn the chief they’d come to conquer and pillage

Lay down your arms – Lay down your spear

The chief’s eyes were sad – But showed no sign of fear

(chorus . . .)

 

It is a good day to die – It is a good day to die

Oh my children dry your eyes – It is a good day to die

He spoke of the days before the white man came

With his guns and whisky

He told of a time a long time ago – Before what you call history

The general couldn’t believe his words nor the look on his face

But he knew these people would rather die than have to live in this disgrace

What law have I broken? What wrong have I done?

That makes you want to bury me upon this trail of blood

(chorus . . .)

 

We cared for the land and the land cared for us

And that’s the way it’s always been

Never asked for more – never asked too much

And now you tell me this is the end

I laid down my weapon – Laid down my bow

Now you want to drive me out with no place left to go

(chorus . . .)

 

And he turned to his people and he said dry your eyes

We’ve been blessed and we are thankful

Raise your voices to the sky – It is a good day to die

Oh my children don’t you cry, dry your eyes

Raise your voice to the sky – It is a good day to die

 

Written by Robbie Robertson.  Album: Music for the Native Americans—————————————

¤            ¤            ¤

◊  A couple of clips from 1999 PBS documentary «Making A Noise: A Native American Musical Journey» featuring Robbie Robertson. Includes audio from imprisoned 1st-Nations’ leader Leonard Peltier, who has been in prison since 1976 for a crime he didn’t commit. 

Robbie explains the way he shaped this beautiful tune:  ⇓  ‘Sacrifice’

You know we have a million stories to tell – I’m just one of a million or more stories that could be told

Chorus:

SACRIFICE YOUR FREEDOM  –  SACRIFICE YOUR PRAYER

TAKE AWAY YOUR LANGUAGE  –  CUT OFF ALL YOUR HAIR

SACRIFICE THE LOVED ONES   WHO ALWAYS STOOD BY ME

STRANDED IN THE WASTELAND  –  SET MY SPIRIT FREE

.

My name is Leonard Peltier  –  I am a Lakota and Anishnabe

And I am living in the United States penitentiary

Which is the swiftest growing Indian reservations in the country

I have been in prison since 1976  for an incident that took place on the Oglala-Lakota Nation

There was a shoot-out between members of the American Indian Movement and The FBI and the local Sheriffs State Troopers.  

Two agents were killed and one Indian was murdered.

Three of us were charged with the deaths of the FBI agents

My co-defendants were found not-guilty by reasons of self-defense

My case was separated and I was found guilty before a jury of non-Indian people

The prosecutor stated that  they did not know who killed their agents

Nor did he know what participation Leonard Peltier may have played in it

But someone  has to pay  for the crime

There’s a lot of nights that I lay in my cell

And I can’t understand why this  hell – this hell and this terror

That I have been going through for twenty-one years hasn’t ended

Chorus .  .  .

But yet I know in my heart that  someone has to pay sacrifice to make things better for our people

The sacrifice I have made when I really sit down to think about it  is nothing compared to what our people a couple hundred years ago or fifty years ago or twenty-five years ago have made

Some gave their lives  –  Some had to stand there and watch their children die in their arms

So I mean the sacrifice I have made is nothing compared to those

I’ve gone too far now to start backing down

I don’t give up  –  Not ‘til my people are free will I give up

And if I have to sacrifice some more  –  Then I sacrifice some more

·  •  ·

◊→  MAKING A NOISE: A Native American Musical Journey

Making a noise in this world – Making a noise in this world

You can bet your ass   I won’t go quietly  –  Making a noise in this world

Everyone has a song – God gave us each a song

That’s how we know who we are  –  Everyone has a song

We have come, heat the drum  –  The land trembles with dancing

We have come, bang the drum  –  The land trembles with dancing

Making a noise in this world – Making a noise in this world

You can bet your ass  I won’t go quietly  –  Making a noise in this world

I don’t want your promise  –  I don’t want your whiskey

I don’t want your blood on my hands – Only want what belongs to me

I think you thought I was gone  –  I think you thought I was dead

You won’t admit that you was wrong

Ain’t there some shit that should be said

Making a noise in this world – Making a noise in this world

You can bet your ass   I won’t go quietly  –  Making a noise in this world

The Indian dancers stop and stare at him – Like he was bad weather

He keeps dancing  and knocks loose an eagle feather

The drums stop – This is the kind of silence that frightens white men

Making a noise in this world

Making a noise in this world

You can bet your ass   I won’t go quietly

Making a noise in this world

(No Indians allowed)           (No Indians allowed)

⇐  w/  U2 _’Sweet Fire of Love’  ←[1987]

      ∇    «Twisted Hair»  ⇓    (1994)

This was the way of it
Let the story fires be lighted
Let our circle be strong
And full of medicine, hear me

This is my dream song that I’m singing for you
This is my power song that is taking me to the edge

This is rock medicine
The talking tree, the singing water
Listen, I am dancing underneath you

This was the way of it
It is a river, it is a chant
It is a medicine story
It is what happened long ago

It is a bead in a story belt
It is what has been forgotten
It is the smell of sweet grass and cedar
And prayers lifted to sky father

It is a way a tradition
The way it was always done by the people
It is a feeling of warmth
The sound of voices
Listen, I am dancing underneath you

   ∇  ‘Once Were Brothers’  ⇓   [2019]

When the light goes out  –  And you can’t go on
You miss your brothers  –  But now they’re gone

When the light goes out  –  We go our own way
Nothing here but darkness  –  No reason to stay

Oh, once we’re brothers  –  Brothers no more
We lost a connection  –  After the war

There’ll be no revival  –  There’ll be no one cold
Once were brothers  –  Brothers no more

When that curtain comes down  –  We’ll let go of the past
Tomorrow’s another day  –  Some things weren’t meant to last

When that curtain comes down  –  On the final act
And you know, you know deep inside  –  There’s no goin’ back

Once were brothers  –  Brothers no more
We lost our way  –  After the war

Can’t even remember  –  What we’re fighting for
When once were brothers  –  Brothers no more

We already had it out  –  Between the north and south
When we heard all the laughs  –  Comin’ out of your mouth

But we stood together  –  Like we were next of kin
And when the band played dixie
(Dixie, dixie, dixie)  –  Dixie marchin’ in

Once were brothers  –  Brothers no more
We lost our connection  –  After the war

There’ll be no revival  –  There’ll be no encore
Once were brothers  –  Brothers no more

•→ ‘Wandering Souls’  ⇐ [«Sinematic_1999]

Φ  Read some excerpts . . .  ⇒  [_1_]  ⇔[_2_]  ⇔  [_3_]  ⇐

÷      ÷      ÷                  ÷      ÷      ÷

¤  «Here Is What Is»  ↓  Daniel Lanois

A behind-the-scenes look at Grammy-winning Canadian composer and record producer

«Here Is What Is» is a sonic, filmic, journey to unique and captivating places from the last year and a half of Lanois’ life. The camera work is classic, uninterrupted and deadly committed. The film opens with a magical performance on the piano by Canada’s national treasure, Garth Hudson. The film includes moments of Lanois philosophizing with his old friend Brian Eno during an exotic visit to Morocco, where the Eno Lanois production team has been working with Irish friends, U2. Lanois also travels to the birthplace of the groove – the Deep South, Shreveport, Louisiana and sits in with Brian Blade at the Zion Baptist Church where a roaring rendition of «This May Be The Last Time» is delivered by Brian’s father, Brady Blade Sr.Lanois’ psychedelic past continues to haunt him throughout the film as the hyper-realism of the in-studio documentation is contrasted by moments of wild fantasia. The heart dedicated to verite is also hungry for the unknown. Lanois also invites us into his studio to look over his shoulder at a mix being performed live, while he explains his moves and the musical reasons for making them. He explains how he stumbled into being a record producer, naively, through his love of music.    

 [by  justdoingitnow]

«…The long-lasting single-camera shot is a philosophy that I recently tried to exercise in the making of Here Is What Is film, which is made up of camera documentation of my work in various studios over the course of a year. The resulting feeling is one of looking-through someone’s diary – musical-performance-room action vs. film-editing-room action.»

Daniel Lanois [Soul Mining]

Here Is What Is  ⇑  is the fifth studio album by Canadian songwriter and record producer Daniel Lanois. It was first released in December 2007 as a high-quality download, and later released on CD on March 18, 2008.

The album is the result of the same project that led to the 2007 documentary «Here Is What Is» that premiered at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival in September. The movie documents the aesthetics and creative process behind Lanois’ approach to music making and recording. The album has been presented as a direct soundtrack to this film, and some of the tracks («Beauty» and «Chest of Drawers«) are conversations with Brian Eno.

«The mystery of the recording studio is what keeps me coming back. Many rewards have come to me through this laboratory. It is my temple, my domain, my frustration and my love. But most importantly, it is my place of innovation. The ultimate drug for me is the ever slippery creative process. My greatest joy in this has come from my associations – the creative, musical and lyrical minds that I’ve been lucky to work with through years of record making. A friend recently suggested that I turn on a camera and try to capture the elusive process. Adam Vollick followed me around the studio to see if we could unveil some of the mystery.»           Daniel Lanois

• Lyrics . . .

• «Beauty» ↓

  Lanois:    I’m trying to make a film that’s beautiful in itself, about beauty, about the, the source of the, of the art rather than everything that surrounds the art.

• Eno:    Yeah, yeah.

• Lanois:    And I was hoping that you might say a couple of words about that subject matter ‘cause, you know, you’ve always operated in a relatively quiet way, and yet, you’re like a, a world artist.

• Eno:    Well, I tell you, one thing I would say about your film is that, what would be really interesting for people to see, is how beautiful things grow out of shit. Because nobody ever believes that. You know, everybody thinks that Beethoven had his string quartets completely in his head. They’d somehow appeared there and formed in his head. Before he, and all he had to do was write them down and they would kind of be manifest to the world. But I think what’s, what’s so interesting and what would really be a lesson that everybody should learn is that things come out of nothing. Things evolve out of nothing. You know, the, the tiniest seed in the right situation turns into the most beautiful forest. And then the most promising seed in the wrong situation turns into nothing. And I think this would be important for people to understand, because it gives people confidence in their own lives to know that that’s how things work. If you walk around with the idea that there are some people who are so gifted, they have these wonderful things in their head, but you’re not one of them, you’re just sort of a normal person, you could never do anything like that, then you live a different kind of life, you know. You, you could have another kind of life where you can say, where you say, well, I know that things come from nothing very much and start from unpromising beginnings, and I’m an unpromising beginning, and I could start something.

•→ «This May Be The Last Time»⇐

•→ ‘With God on Our Side’ ⇐[Neville Brothers]

• «Not Fighting Anymore»  ↓

. . . you can have what’s left of this ragged frame

you can have what’s left of this used up chain

 

i’m not fighting any more want to let it all go

the melting of a man like the sun on the snow

 

. . . i’m not fighting any more going to let it all down’

cause this old town don’t know me anyhow

we don’t own nothing any more it’s all passing by  

let it all cry  let it run dry

 

i’m not fighting any more  –  i’m not keeping score

going to let it all fade  –  going to let it all wane

i’m not fighting any less i see the sea

feel it in the chest heard something in the breeze

 

now i know where i’m bound some kind of ecstasy

that far away lonesome sound picture you so pretty

now i know what i’m for when my sweetness is there

crack of light on the door leaves nothing to compare

 

i’m not fighting any more  –  i’m not fighting any more . . . 

you can have what’s left of this ragged frame

you can have what’s left of this pain

•  «Here Is What Is»  ↓

I came here on a brave driving wheel
Now I’m wearing these heavy arms of steel
Don’t know what is light and what is shadow
I kind of thought I did but I guess I don’t know

 

Here is what is, here is what is
Smile a little to your sweetheart
Here is what is, here is what is
Don’t you go walking too long in the dark

 

I ran for a minute then the city took me back
The railway of promises was a broken track
Through your eyes I can see
That maybe I don’t need to be what I thought I should be

 

Here is what is, here is what is
Spiral down to your sweetheart
Here is what is, here is what is
Don’t you go walking too long in the dark

 

Ice falls on me but I feel no cold
You’re like a fleece, like a new soul
I’m standing on the ledge not fearing the fall
Your salvation teaches all

 

Here is what is, here is what is . . .

•  Chest of drawers

Eno:   I remember buying a, a little Indian, sort of, chest of drawers once. And I was so intrigued by it, and the colour of it, and I thought, this, if I let it be, could be the beginning of a new life for me. If I followed the message of this little set of drawers, and built everything else around that, that would be a different life.

•  «Sacred And Secular»

Eno:    So I’m an anti romantic, really, and it’s part of being an atheist. It’s another version of being an atheist that it’s anti, anti this idea that it’s outside of us rather than inside of us. It’s all inside of us. I don’t think there’s anything, I don’t think there’s anything else actually. It’s all in us. And, and it’s, it’s all in everyone too.

Lanois:   Yeah.

Blade:     It’s all so connected. You know I’m not, for me, to think sacred and secular as being hard. It’s just that it was always, it was always praise, you know, for me. I just never, I can never see it another way. Music, you know, it’s always this.

Lanois:   The pedal steel guitar is my favourite instrument. I’ve been playing it since I was a kid. It takes me to a sacred place. It’s my little church in a suitcase. That’s what I like to call it. My church in a suitcase. 

◊  I’d rather go blind  ↓  Trixie Whitley w/ Brian Blade & Daniel Lanois

With my knife so dull, I’d kill it if I could
But only for the sake of this destruction, dysfunction, yeah

I’d rather go blind than be, be this misunderstood, yeah . . .

My ma keeps on telling me
You got the world in your hands ay
So much to give child
All I want is to take some distance
All I think is I know I should ooo

I’d rather go blind than be, be this misunderstood, yeah . . .

Brother knows I ain’t no – I ain’t no – no weakly child ya ya
Brother knows that I ain’t no – I ain’t no – no weakly child to him . . .

Eating dirt all day long – Running with all the despair
This humanity, a vulture, blood suckers yah

I’d rather go blind than be, be this misunderstood, yeah . . .
Brother knows I ain’t no  . . .

 

∇  NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert  ⇓  [2015]

1 _»Sci Fi»   /  2_»Elevator»   /  3_ «Apres Calypso»

∇  ‘Way Down’  ⇓  [«Heavy Sun»_2021]

I’m looking for a city  –  On the other side
And when I get there  –  I’ll be satisfied
It’s a beautiful city  –  That’s what I been told
Where we are not bought  –  And we are not sold

Way down, way down  –  Way down, way down
A city on the other side …

Beyond betrayal and trouble of every kind
Beyond my reason
Beyond my reasoning why
Beyond the reaches
Beyond the reaches of time
Beyond the horizon
Beyond the horizon line

Way down, way down  –  Way down, way down
A city on the other side …

Weep like a willow
Moan like a dove
I’m trading pity for kindness
Hatred for love

Way down, way down  –  Way down, way down
Going to that city  –  A city on the other side
Way down, way down  –  Way down, oh
A city on the other side

Beyond the start  –  Beyond the start and the end
To rediscover  –  To rediscover again
On the other side  –  On the other side we descend
Into our heart  –  Into our hearts we transcend

Way down, way down  –  Way down, way down
A beautiful  –  A city on the other side
Way down, way down  –  A city on the other side
A beautiful city
Way down  –  That’s what I’ve been told
Way down
We are not bought
City
We are not sold
On the other side

♦→  Interview   with Daniel Lanois  ⇐

¤  Soul Mining: A Musical Life  ↓ Chapter 1  [a book beautifully written by DL]

The Ottawa River is the dividing line between Ontario and Quebec, or between English- and French-speaking Canada. When I was a child, as far as the eye could see, the river was often covered by miles and miles of floating logs making their way to the paper mill. That heavy sulfur smell in the air was taken for granted. The riverside road was flanked by log mountains, long-nosed cranes pouring their mysterious solution—one step closer to paper pulp. My parents lived on the Quebec side of the river, the French side, in a government housing community by the name of Projet Dusseau. We were French Canadian. I spoke only French until the age of ten, and I remember having a wonderful upbringing in that community. I never thought much about the fact that we were poor. Kids don’t think that way.

The Quebec landscape was fascinating to me. Wooden bridges were covered up like birdhouses to keep the snow away. Wooden staircases with roofs were a common sight. If the snow piles up too high, and the weather goes mild, you might not be able to get out till springtime. Chains wrapped around tires for better traction. Cars commonly equipped with tow ropes and battery booster cables. This maple-sugar country is very aware of the power of seasons.

If you weren’t ready for the winter, you could freeze and die. In those parts, preparation for survival comes naturally, even to a young boy. Preparation for survival is always in the wings, constantly kicking at your shin—even the shin of a young boy. When the thaw comes, you can hear the waking maples creaking, drinking in the snow water that creeps up the branches of dormant trees—that’s how you get maple water. A spike in the tree interrupts the flow to the branches, and if your hillsides are clean, nature’s nectar makes for a nice drink. The varying densities in the journey from maple water to maple syrup to maple sugar are dependent on how long one keeps the water boiling. Much like the winemaking valleys of France or the Bourbon-making valleys of Kentucky, the maple-sugar-making valleys of Quebec produce their limited quantities and fine vintages, with taste relative to the quality of the local soil, the intensity of the sun, and the tender love and care of a specific maple-sugar farm.

I remember the springtime ritual—the pouring of boiling maple water into the white snowbanks. As the water crystallizes against the snow, children run up with sticks and twirl the toffee into a homemade confection—nature’s gift to the sweet tooth. Back in the day, my grandfather’s sled—horse-drawn, hot bricks laid down beneath the feet of the passengers to keep everybody warm—was the family vehicle.

Sunday church runs, people wrapped in furs—the house of God was the house of cooperation. The priest’s sermon could easily segue into village news: someone just had a baby, hand-me-down clothes needed, so-and-so’s well just dried out, announcement of the church bazaar, help needed to raise a barn. Yes, the house of God was a crossing point for relevant village information. The barter system was in use then. My eggs for your wood, my plowing for your corn, and so on.

Every house was a food-making house, and my grandmother Aurore’s house was no exception. She really knew how to work the maple sugar. Her sucre à la crème (maple sugar fudge), refined by generations of home recipes, was pretty much the best. At the savory end of the spectrum, my grandmother of course made tourtière (spicy meat pie). These old recipes were closely guarded. Boasting of a better crème or tourtière was not uncommon from one house to the next.

Kids walked to school in those days—I liked that about the project. We were on the edge of rural land and so my brother Bob and I wandered everywhere after school and did whatever we wanted. Many hours were spent by the railway tracks or at the river’s edge doing boy things: skipping stones, laying pennies on the rail lines, watching them get squashed by the train. We were fascinated by the writing on the sides of the railcars, like Canadian Pacific Railway, Canadian National Rail; others were more specific to provinces and towns. Exotic names like Saskatoon, Thunder Bay, Wa Wa, and Mississauga sure stirred the imagination. Rolls of steel coming from the west, cattle cars, empty flatbeds, boxcars with open doors—we made up stories about their sources and destinations.

A ceramic tile factory by the name of Primco was our second backyard. Bob and I collected various discarded tiles and would make up games with them. A few of the Primco workers were sympathetic to our curiosity, slipping us a few irregular tiles to expand our little homemade building set. I loved the smell of that factory. They had kilns burning all the time, and the nonstop action appealed to me. It must have been a kick to see the faces of two brothers sticking their heads inside the Primco windows, looking for tile handouts. Even at that tender age, Bob and I loved the feeling of productivity.

It was a happy childhood, and I was oblivious to the fact that my parents were having marital problems, until I started hearing arguments in the night. Bob, my younger brother, Ron, and I slept in one room, and my parents slept in the other. The arrival of my sister, Jocelyne, meant that we had outgrown the two-bedroom place. Four kids and work not going all that well strained my parents’ relationship, and then it all started. My dad was hitting not only the bottle, but also my mother. I later wrote a song about this called “Jolie Louise,” the rise and fall of hopes and dreams as seen from the perspective of my dad.

Ma jolie, how do you do?

Mon nom est Jean-Guy Thibault-Leroux

I come from east of Gatineau

My name is Jean-Guy, ma jolie

J’ai une maison à Lafontaine

where we can live, if you marry me

Une belle maison à Lafontaine

where we will live, you and me

Oh Louise, ma jolie Louise

Tous les matins au soleil

I will work ’til work is done

Tous les matins au soleil

I did work ’til work was done

And one day, the foreman said

“Jean-Guy, we must let you go”

Et pis mon nom, y est pas bon

at the mill anymore…

Oh Louise, I’m losing my head,

I’m losing my head

My kids are small, four and three

et la bouteille, she’s mon ami

I drink the rum ’til I can’t see

It hides the shame Louise does not see

Carousel turns in my head,

and I can’t hide, oh no, no, no, no

And the rage turned in my head

and Louise, I struck her down,

down on the ground

I’m losing my mind, I’m losing my mind

En Septembre ’63

kids are gone, and so is Louise.

Ontario, they did go

near la ville de Toronto

Now my tears, they roll down,

tous les jours

And I remember the days,

and the promises that we made

Oh Louise, ma jolie Louise, ma jolie Louise

After my mother had had enough domestic mistreatment, she put the four kids on a train and took us from Quebec to Hamilton, Ontario—about a five-hundred-mile journey—and never looked back. Her brother had found work in Hamilton (near Toronto) as a bartender, and had managed to purchase a rooming house that we lived in the back of until my mom got on her feet. My dad was not happy about all of this, and so a few months later he came to fetch his boys. We were walking to school and he pulled up; we were happy to see him so we jumped in the car and that was it—five hundred miles back to Quebec. He put us in a cabin by a lake in rural Quebec, and that’s where we lived for a good few months. My dad was doing carpentry work in town, and so during the week we lived by ourselves. He would come to visit on weekends—we had a blast. We were twelve, nine, and five.

My dad was a greaseball, as were his friends. They were the smart-dressing kind of greaseballs—no jeans. They were slick and dapper, and as this was the tail end of the fifties, there was a lot of excitement about cars. A two-tone 1957 Chevy and all, lots of looking under the hood. My dad was a good dancer. He was funny and looked sharp—very charming, and women like men who are charming. So much gets overlooked in the name of charm. It was a macho time and I liked it.

My dad and his friends were hunters. There was a lot of mythology about the ways of the woods. I remember my dad teaching me how to walk in the woods. He had learned from the Indians; it was all about being at one with the wilderness—one step and then a pause to listen. The results of the “listen” determine the next step, and then another “listen,” and another step. Humans are only ever guests in the woods. In the way that a sailor never underestimates the power of the sea, the hunter never forgets the ways of the woods. Animals have much hearing power; they know a clumsy human intruder from far away. The listening pause between every step puts a human closer to the instinct of the animal.

Wintertime adds another dimension to the ways of the woods. The snowbanks hold secrets. One careless footstep might disturb the peace. Only experience can teach what terrain lies underneath the mysterious white snow. Snow time is better for tracking, but the advantage of seeing tracks in the soft surface could easily be crushed by a hunter’s fall due to not understanding what lies underneath the beautiful white snow.

When the weather is hot, the flies can eat you alive. The sap running down from the pine trees could be your savior. Old Jocko Proux, one of the elders of the community, had survived the woods for an entire week by covering his whole body with pine sap as a barrier against the flies.

They say we walk in circles—we humans—in circles when we’re lost. A marking on a white birch, connected with the marking on yet another white birch two hundred feet away, connected with a marking on yet another white birch another two hundred feet away, keeps a circling human going straight. The birch-to-birch technique is common knowledge as remedy for anyone lost in the woods.

Preparation is a big part of survival in these isolated northern Quebec communities, many of which have no electricity. The seasons are the governors and dictators of all human behavior. If you want ice for your icebox in the summer, then you must cut your ice from the lake in the winter. Ice cutting is a collective effort: a group of men, bucksaws in hand, cutting through two feet of ice. The ice is lifted out of the water with massive pliers and placed on skids to be dragged back to shore. The gaping hole has a slippery edge. One mistake and somebody might drown. This dangerous task is the cold-climate version of Mennonite community barn building—everybody chips in to fill one family’s sawdust-filled cedar icehouse. Remarkably, the sawdust acts as an insulator and keeps the massive blocks of ice intact for the entire warm season. The family that does not fill their icehouse in the winter will not be able to keep their fish cold in the summer.

When my dad left us in the cabin, we pretty much did whatever we wanted. Bob and I shot rifles a lot, and Bob got really good—he could have been a sniper. I liked the smell of bullets exploding in my face. We three boys—we all loved shooting those rifles. We had a .303, a Winchester, and a .22. The .303 was a serious deer-hunting rifle, but even the .22 gave quite a kick because we shot .22 longs (these were the longer .22 shells for longer distance). There was a sandpit nearby where we shot arrows into the sky. We closed our eyes and waited for them to land, and sure enough they did, sometimes right next to us. It was a sort of “Quebec Roulette”—we could have gotten one in the head. What does all this mean? It just shows the madness of boys. Ron, the youngest, didn’t do the arrow thing. He was busy cooking, five years old, standing on a chair at a woodstove. Everybody survived, and as crazy as it may seem, I believe those were good learning times.

My mother eventually came to steal us back, and so five hundred miles back to Hamilton. That was the end of the volley. I know my dad loved his kids, but I believe my mom did the right thing. It was all a bit mad, but I appreciate that my parents made decisions for themselves without the involvement of courtrooms. I have always been fascinated with the fact that people do not take responsibility for their actions. Some judge somewhere will decide what now needs to happen regarding a situation that you happily waltzed into? A completely personal matter will now be dealt with by some stranger? It all avalanches from there, lawsuits and accusations. My parents never spoke again. My dad didn’t get pushed into any child-support scheme; it was a nice clear severance.

We resettled into Hamilton in my uncle’s back apartment. It was a one-bedroom place. We three boys slept in the bedroom and my mom slept on a foldout couch with my sister. The boys’ room had two bunk beds, and another bed in the corner. It was hard to adjust to the English language, but aside from that we had a good time. We walked to school, about a mile and a half. I loved walking, forever fascinated with the factories along the way. There was often a burning smell in the air, as Hamilton is a steelmaking town. We attended a French school, and our teachers were nuns. It was a big old place that had fallen into disarray and would soon be knocked down. Every kid brought a lunch bag from home, and when lunchtime rolled around, we ate at our desks. The school provided every kid with a little carton of milk. There was no refrigerator, and so the milk cartons were lined up on the windowsill to keep cool.

The school was closely associated with the church, and when the nuns concluded that I might be a candidate for the priest-hood, I was introduced to some of the decision makers at the church. I remember a mild-mannered, curious man in a black robe, speaking tenderly as he pointed out paragraphs for me to read from the literature that he had brought. I was made to feel special, and I liked the idea of belonging to this club. They gave me an outfit, a robe with ornamental ribbons that I wore as they began to teach me the way of the altar. I became an altar boy, and the church was my hangout. It was like being backstage. There was wine, a few things to eat, and I got to ring the bells. I loved it. The priest would give me a wink, and I would whack the bells. Perhaps it was the camaraderie that appealed to me, like being in a band. This went on for a few years, until girls started looking more interesting than priests. That was the end of my priest-hood.

Back in Quebec, music had been all around me. My dad was a violoneux, which means a violin player or fiddler, as was his dad, my grandfather. Grandfather Lanois was good on the violin, and though he was not a professional, he played at neighborhood events, weddings, and other ceremonies. On my mom’s side there were singers. My uncles and aunts sang old Quebec folk songs, and it all added up to a self-entertaining environment. Our gatherings were typical of the Quebec culture of the time. Big families, late-night card playing, lots of laughing, shouting, banging on tables, kids piled up in the bed while the adults went crazy in the other room. No babysitters—people didn’t use babysitters.

The music of Quebec has always stayed with me, especially the melodies, and although I didn’t play an instrument yet, I was already thinking about music. I wanted a clarinet, which somewhere along the way I had gotten it into my head that I should play. Probably something I saw on television.

My mother allowed me one dollar a week as personal spending money, and I spent it on Saturdays when I would walk downtown by myself and see a movie. This was the time of biblical movies, so I got to see films like David and Goliath and Samson. I loved them. I thought they were sexy—robes, skimpy outfits, and pretty girls. On one Saturday, walking to the cinema, I was distracted by a plastic pennywhistle in the front window of a music store. It was white plastic with red finger holes. It didn’t look quite like a clarinet, but it was close. The price tag on it said one dollar. On that Saturday, I didn’t make it to the movies—but I did walk through the door that led me to a new life.

My little plastic pennywhistle and me. My new companion that I played nonstop for the next two years. In order to remember melodies, I invented a notation system [. . .]

A man knocked on my mother’s door and asked if she had any kids that liked music. She said that she had one who liked to play the pennywhistle. Having passed the aptitude test, the man explained to my mother that his school taught only accordion and slide guitar. Accordion didn’t appeal to me, and so I became a slide guitar player. Now, once a week, I was walking to my music lesson carrying an acoustic guitar with very high action—the strings were about an inch off the neck—and I played it with a steel bar. I loved it.

My teacher was a curious man who experimented with hypnotism. At the beginning of every lesson, he would hypnotize me by placing a little object on the music stand as a focal point. He made me look at it until everything got blurry, as he repeated “you’re getting sleepy.” Once I was hypnotized, the lesson would start, and sure enough, it worked. I got really good on the slide, and my interest in music broadened by the week. I now lived in the most incredible world, up at 4:00 a.m. to deliver the morning paper, and then rushing home to open the cases of my pennywhistle and slide guitar. I loved the smell of them, and I played these instruments until my fingers bled and my mind got sharp.

My brother Bob and I are of similar mind. It’s the kind of mind that dismantles the engine of the family car and then reassembles it before my mother gets home. The mind that looks at the electrical transformer up on a pole and figures out high-voltage current reduction to 220 and then down to 110. The kind of mind that memorizes the complicated morning paper route. That memorizes each and every name of each customer. The mind that wants to know what goes on behind the doors of factory buildings, wants to know the sidelines of the steel business in Hamilton and how they make wire all stacked up in a yard on large industrial spools. The mind that wants to know the next newspaper customer. The customer range was wide. My factory and industrial clients were reliable, but my drunk customers living in the York Street Hotel were not. Much of my time was spent banging on doors in smelly hallways, trying to collect from transient customers. Rooms by the week, rusted-out Cadillacs, barflies drowning sorrows—this sketchy part of town sure was an education for an eleven-year-old.

Through my little grapevine, I had heard about the job opportunity. A kid in school who was a little older than me was moving away, and he made his newspaper route available to me. A hundred and twenty copies of The Globe and Mail every morning made for a big route, but I took it on anyhow. Every morning I woke up at 4:00 or 5:00, put on my warm clothes, and put my wire-cutting key in my pocket. I headed for the newspaper drop-off, my route in my head. I always worried that I might not remember the address of every customer, and the seasons dictated whether I could use my bicycle or not. If I couldn’t use the bike, I carried the papers in a sack—120 papers cutting into my shoulder. My morning route afforded me some isolated time away from adults, time for a child’s imagination to grow. There’s something powerful that happens when you rise before the rest of the world. The feeling of freedom or rebirth that I imagine the birds feel every morning also belongs to a newspaper delivery boy. The two voices or characters in my head would inevitably start talking. They would argue and discuss, the one trying to outwit the other, or win the argument, both characters played by myself. Is this a mental illness? Or a necessary preparation for the psychological journey one must embark on to be good in the recording studio? I still play the two characters today. Sometimes I get strange looks from people.

I was trying to find a place in the world, as were my brothers. My sister was just a baby then, raised by my grandmother while my mother worked. My grandmother was beautiful, with an oversized thumb, three times bigger than a normal one—I never knew why. She sang while doing the dishes. Everything pretty much happened in one room—one big kitchen with a porch to sit out on. The backyard was pretty, a yard that we shared with my grandmother because her apartment was right next door. My grandmother Aurore kept a bird; she loved that bird. I love birds too—my affection for them must come from Aurore. As the world trips over itself, chasing the latest gadget, the birds do what they’ve always done.

My brother Bob was always the scientist of us two. We were pretty much inseparable once we got our recording studio going. Bob and I would stay up late nights challenging every situation with bright ideas. I love all ideas, even absurd ones. After all, pushing the envelope is such a large part of innovation. Bob and I always had a tape recorder around the house. Our first one was an old flea-market machine, everything on board—microphone, speakers—really easy to use. It had a warbly, muted sound. My friends would come over, and we’d have a laugh recording our voices and listening back.

My next setup was in the basement. The machine was a Roberts, again with onboard speakers. Reel to reel, quarter-inch quarter-track, which meant you could flip the reel over and record more music using the same spool. My next rig was great, a Sony TC-630. Again fully contained, mics, speakers, the lot, except it had a “sound on sound” feature. I had now found my secret weapon. The Sony allowed me to record on channel 1, and then on listening back I could transfer that sound onto channel 2, along with some more singing or playing in the room. A miracle! I could now stack up tracks by bouncing from channel to channel. A technological deficiency became my friend. The more transferring I did, the more muted the early recordings became. This meant that the earlier parts became more faraway sounding, giving the last part added a more upfront, brighter, closer-sounding position. Voila! Auto-mixing and automatic “depth of field.” I began to plan my recordings in anticipation of this deficiency. I would stack up my performances but wait to record my up-front information as my last layer. This was also an excellent training for commitment to a blend. Mixing along the way became part of my technique then and is still with me today.

The “sound on sound” technique also persisted, even into the next chapter of my career. At this point, Bob and I had purchased two Revox quarter-inch recorders, excellent Swiss machines. We would record onto the first Revox, and if we liked the result, we would record more playing and singing on top as we transferred onto the second Revox. The quality was amazing—nice, big, punchy, full sound. At any stage of the transfer system, you could decide that that was enough, and that was it. The final Revox recording became the master tape. This was a big thrill, and the buzz was out—the Lanois brothers had built a sound. People came from all over the place to record in my mom’s basement. We took it a step further, and offered a package vinyl deal. Two days in the studio, artwork, and a thousand pieces of vinyl delivered to your door. Our little business started to boom.

The next setup was a four-track. Our homemade console was built by two local technicians and my brother Bob; it was originally created with a stereo output, but Bob later modified it to accommodate the four-track Teac. The Teac, of course, could only hold so much information, and so Bob and I invented the six-track system. Legato information, like strings or background vocals, would be mixed down to the Revox, freeing up tracks for more recording on the Teac. The strings and the background vocals would just sit on the Revox until the mix. Come mixing time, a single large button triggered the Teac and Revox to start at the same time, with the help of china marks on the tapes. If the markings were accurate, it would all be in sync, and the six tracks were then combined onto the other Revox. Magic! Production was now complete with strings and background vocals.

The four-track studio is where I recorded Rick James. Rick lived in Buffalo, New York, which is located on the Canada/United States border not far from the burbs of Hamilton, where our studio was located. A friend of mine, Eddie Roth, was playing organ with Rick and recommended my studio as a cool place to make demos.

The master musical mind of Rick James is still with me today. He was a monster arranger, full productions pouring out of the speakers within twenty minutes. I felt like I was in the presence of Bach or Beethoven. His understanding of the tapestry of funk in my experience remains unparalleled. Rick breezed in and out of my life but remains one of my great teachers. I didn’t even mind that Rick never paid me for the session.

The nonstop flow of people in and out of my mother’s house was incredible; the place became a hangout. My mother even cooked for clients. The kitchen table that had seen everything was about to see even more. I can’t imagine what the neighbors were thinking—what was Rick James doing in their neighborhood? The house had only one bathroom, and as I think about it now, the invasion of privacy was something that my mom could easily have been angry about, but she reversed the energy and embraced the entire situation. Some of the recording sessions, like the Jamaican reggae sessions, accommodated up to thirty people. Picnic blankets on the front lawn, immediate and extended families all welcome. When nighttime came, they’d end up watching TV in my mother’s front room. It was not a regular house.

The basement studio hosted the recordings of hundreds of albums, including a lot of gospel quartets. The quartets were a big part of my education. The four parts keep the brain sharp, the melody is being chased constantly by the three harmonies. Occasionally, the melody may even become subservient to the harmony. What an amazing world of invention! I believe my ability to come up with harmonies has a lot to do with these early lessons.

[…] We eventually moved into a new studio on Grant Avenue. By that time Bob and I had moved up to a sixteen-track American recorder made by MCI. The console was also MCI. Bob built the new studio while I kept going in the basement. The renovations exceeded our budget, and we were pushed to accept a second mortgage at a rate of 17 percent, an insane amount that we paid for years.

The habit from my newspaper route of getting up very early was still with me, except now I was up at four in the morning to go to the studio and work on my sounds. I had early sampling gear that I was excited about. In fact, the term sample had not been invented yet—I called them traps. I would catch little fragments from vinyl records and then manipulate my sources to the point of nonrecognition. These experiments were made prior to my meeting Eno.

Brian Eno became aware of my work while he lived in New York City. I had recorded some inventive demos with a group from Toronto called the Time Twins. My friend Billy Bryans had in fact produced these demos, and they were full of sonic delights and the songs themselves were very unusual. The Twins took their wares to New York and somehow bumped into Eno. They played him the tapes, and he was curious about where they were made. The Twins told Eno that a kid from Canada named Danny Lanois made them in his studio. Coincidentally, Eno was planning a trip to Toronto, and he chance-booked a session with me. I had never heard of him, and so I advised Bob to insist that Eno bring cash. He turned out to be a reliable sort and initiated a major turning point in my life.

Eno came into my world as an incredible force of work ethic and dedication. Time stood still as I became a conduit for the most progressive thinking I had ever been exposed to. Before Eno, I had been in a sort of limbo, building my skills but not with any specific direction. Eno arrived with a suitcase full of bells, acquired on Canal Street in New York. The first thing he said to me was that he wanted to record the bells as he walked around the studio for forty-five minutes, the idea being that the bells would ring throughout the entire record. I set up six microphones and Eno proceeded to walk around as I recorded. There were a few creaks in the floor that I had never noticed before, because people don’t usually walk around studios. The bells were meant to be a companion to the 7½ IPS tapes that Eno had brought with him from New York. As I transferred them to my sixteen-track recorder, they revealed the most beautiful, delicate, melodic, and romantic piano playing, which sounded like a sort of contemporary version of the great French composer Eric Satie. The artist was Harold Budd.

Punk had just exploded and anger seemed to be a common ingredient in the music I had been recording in the few years preceding the Eno visit. The Eno/Budd work had no anger in it. It had stillness, acceptance, and premonition. It had patience, subtlety, and refinement. The anger was left outside in the busy hustling world. My heart rate slowed down and time stood still. The vibe got thicker by the day. I began to live for nothing else—I cared only about the work. I felt like a forensic expert or a scientist or a doctor, on the verge of solving some great, menacing riddle.

Eno’s early years had been very different from mine. He had gone to art school, and so had a broad knowledge of art and contemporary urban philosophies and trends. He had already recorded some very significant records—some of Talking Heads’ best work, Remain in Light, for example; My Life in the Bush of Ghosts with David Byrne; David Bowie classics like Low, Lodger, and Heroes, and Brian’s own records, of course, like Before and After Science, Another Green World, and Music for Airports, all regarded as groundbreaking. I was highly skilled but isolated and not aware of the revolution that Eno had been a part of.

Years of preparation and skill-building had now found a home. I loved working with Eno. He came in like a breath of fresh air, like some sort of redemption after many years of laboring through bill-paying projects. Brian’s work did not accommodate the expectations of pop music; it was something timeless. Finally I felt that my work had relevance. Eno was about to be my teacher—not of music, not of the recording process, but my teacher of dedication and belief. Choose your passion and enter the arena! One note of Harold Budd’s piano crushed the back of years of struggle and disappointment. I felt I was on my way.

Eno liked the fact that I was musical. Yes, I was a good technician—but more important, I was a musician. Perhaps this is the right time to talk about faith. Being faithful to skill-building without knowledge of practical future application has always been part of me. Running on excitement, I will pursue a skill or an idea, trusting that one day it will find a home.

My tools have always been dear to me, and I continue to embrace tools—technology and musical instruments—as they come my way. Back in the late sixties I purchased my first steel guitar from the great Canadian steel guitarist Bob Lucier. Bob was playing at the Edison, a country music club near the Brown Derby, where I was playing in a show band to make some cash. This was all happening on Yonge Street in Toronto, pretty much at the sunset of the great Toronto nightclub era. Levon Helm explains it beautifully in his book This Wheel’s on Fire.

Lucier was a god to me. His calmness and harmonious way of playing appealed to me. He was also a “Frenchy,” and so I was instantly comforted by his French Canadian accent. He spoke slowly like me, and had a machinist’s way of explaining the workings of the steel guitar. Bob agreed to teach me the ins and outs of the steel, and offered to supply me with my first Sho-Bud. He was kind and wise, and I felt a fatherly embrace in his guidance. When you don’t grow up with a father around, you notice these fatherly moments, even from strangers. Bob was a force and I looked forward to my weekly lesson with him.

The emptiness that I had reached with church during my school years had now been filled with joy by Bob Lucier. I played my little Sho-Bud bird’s-eye maple guitar and all kinds of pictures came into my mind about the future. I saw myself playing with Dolly Parton, with my name written across the front of my guitar, just as I’d seen on TV. Maybe I could be on the Porter Wagoner show. Maybe I could be on TV with Willie Nelson or with the “Sweetheart of America,” Emmylou Harris.

My early studies in finger picking sure helped me out. All of a sudden, years of classical guitar training made sense. I was able to skate around the steel like a magician. My right hand was advanced and took quickly to the steel. I could play in an original way because I did not come up in the conventional steel guitar manner.

My tone was full and deep—I wasn’t fast, but I had tone. The years of radio listening in my mother’s basement had taught me that it took very little to make a listener feel something. Fewer notes were often better; like Albert King or John Lee Hooker or Booker T. Heartfelt strokes would outlast speed. I had reached a crossroads in my musical life, another pivotal moment of clarity. The steel would be my “Church in a Suitcase” and a friend for the rest of my life.

The Eno sessions dominated my time, and I was glad that Bob was taking care of business. Eno, my brother, and I developed a friendship—we became the dedicated men of ambient music. Eno had been working on his ambient music theory for some time. Years before, he had been hit by a taxicab in London. While lying in the hospital bed he noticed that the classical music playing over the speaker in his room was audible only at the crescendos of the arrangements. In the quieter passages, there was seemingly silence, but as the orchestra ramped up its energy, a moment would rear its head—the loud passages were the only audible bits. The randomness of the risings appealed to Eno. He liked the fact that the music was not constant, like a gentle wind blowing a sweet scent your way, which then disappears and reappears. This was the beginning of Eno’s Ambient Music Theory.

By 1980, Eno and I were working together regularly. He came up from New York as often as he could and we continued with the ambient recordings. Eno had been invited to supply music for a documentary about the Apollo space missions, and as this was intriguing to him, he accepted. The ambient music makers were now about to create music for outer space.

There was a country-music tone to the space project because the astronauts were from Texas. The banter between the astronauts and ground control all had a bit of a twang to it. My steel guitar had found a new home. Eno encouraged me to overdub on a dreamy celestial track called “Deep Blue Day” to complement a piano track played by his brother, Roger, who also had been invited to Canada to join in on the project. “Deep Blue Day” became an ambient classic thirteen years later after it was used in the toilet bowl scene in the film Trainspotting. My steel guitar may have been memorialized by a toilet bowl, but “Deep Blue Day” is still one of my favorite instrumentals. The album ultimately was named Apollo, and is a memorable journey through space. Apollo also includes “An Ending Ascent,” one of my favorite creations by Eno. A good many ambient records were made during this chapter of innovation, and as always, dedicated work segues into a next chapter. We were now about to bring ambience to Dublin.

Eno received an invitation in 1983 to produce a record for a new band in Ireland called U2. He agreed to a meeting and asked if I could come along as we were on a creative roll: the “Ambient Junkies” were now in Dublin. We found ourselves crammed in a car with all the U2 guys and Eno and I in the backseat, cassettes being played at full volume, Bono shouting melodies and making up choruses. It was all a bit mad, but very exciting. Bono’s enthusiasm was contagious, and even though we didn’t hear finished songs, there seemed to be enough to go on. Eno had originally planned on introducing me to U2, and then thought he would walk away and leave me with the project. I suppose that all changed in the heat of the moment and he finally said yes. All crunched up in the back of the car, I nodded my head and somehow I was now on board with Eno and U2.