30 Songs in 30 Days – Day Fourteen – Mirrorball

Mirrorball first appeared on the seminal album Pop Happenings Volume 4, possibly the greatest album in the history of popular music. (Well, maybe that’s a *slight* exagguration!) The version on Pop Happenings differed from the version here, (henceforth known as the Bathroom Tapes) because a) it has a drum track and b) I didn’t make a mistake in the final verse.

FYI, the drumming on the Bathroom version is actually Woody Woodmansey, the mighty drummer from the Spiders from Mars. I sampled the drum hits from the intro to Five Years, shoved them in a sampler and triggered them from Cubase. (I’m guessing this opens up the opportunity for Woody/Bowie/Mainman/Whoever to claim a percentage of the revenue from that version of Mirrorball – chaps, I have a cheque for £0.79 waiting for you).

There’s a forthcoming version of Mirrorball sung by Speedy Sue aka Sue Armitage, which will be part of an album we’re working on. Now that version will be magnificent. Sue has such a beautiful voice.

Normally, when I record my voice I always cut out some of the lower frequencies, apply a liberal amount of compression and copious quantities of reverb. It’s an interesting exercise hearing my voice as it comes out of my mouth. I must admit, it’s a relief to get into the bathroom to have a little natural reverb surround it.