TOT TAYLOR – ‘BABY, I MISS THE INTERNET’
Donald Trump – another ‘Love-Letter’
or
‘BABY, I MISS THE INTERNET’
‘Message to the Candidate’
(Rama, Rama, Rama)
more to the point; Baby, I Miss the Internet (rama, rama, rama again & again)
– the State of the Union – and why it was responsible for dragging this citizen back into the recording-studio.
Herewith a response to The Candidate, his vision and his message.
or
BABY, I MISS THE INTERNET
Never has so little been owed to a no one, by so many – and never will so much be owed to so many by a no one…
TOT TAYLOR
with
The Byatt Macrobiotic Unit Symphony
BABY, I MISS THE INTERNET
the full story…
I used to go to the old East-West Center in Old St (before it became Clearspring). I was with a macrobiotic teacher there – Jon Sandifer – and I really got into it and followed the doctrine and the regime, eating very sparsely, though very specifically, miso, wakame, kombu, rice, a lot of seaweed and umeboshi, kukicha etc, and talking to goats every morning as Jon had suggested (two grey and white ones were tethered to a pole near the ex-cricket pitch in Crouch End).
There were several music people at the Center; Eno I remember, having problems coming off coffee, and U2 Bono had been there as well. But it was classical people mainly, for various kinds of therapy including eating disorders. I used to go see them rehearse at the Byatt Unit, a big old hall (ex-therapeutic Center) down the road and we formed a sort of ad hoc orchestra. It was pretty good and they played on an Italian film soundtrack I did at the time – ‘Shatterer’ d.Tonino Valeri (1987), Toshiro Mifune’s final film. The job was stressful – working in Italy, everyone speaking in Japanese – which I was also trying to learn at the time.
A few months ago I called as many of the members as I could find and we formed the old orchestra up again. They were all very anti-Trump of course and several still macrobiotic, still ‘believers’, like myself.
When the orchestra heard the song they smiled in all the right places, laughed at the words and asked me why it was in all these different keys? (it’s not really). After a couple of rehearsals we got together in the big studio at RAK and put the thing down. I had a vision of it as a kind of love letter/love ballad/hate mail, styled as a kind of early-70s Barry Manilow thing – sort of sung to Trump by me, in the ‘Barry’ role.
I have hopes that Barry Manilow himself might somehow hear the song, be in sympathy with it –
he is a long-term Democratic funder and fundraiser – and might decide to record it himself.
I was a big fan of his ‘big voice/big orchestra’ ballads when I was a kid and I’m in a kind of a phase now of replaying a lot of the old singles
I used to play then. Several of which are his. I also thought that this in itself was such a ‘brilliant’ idea that if he ever did in fact record it, that may also ‘bring Barry back’ at the same time. In a legitimate way, I mean. Bring him back into focus, as one of the top balladeers of our times. If you know Barry, or have any connection with him please send the song to him. Anyway…
Tot Taylor, Cornwall, May 2020
7” + 10” vinyl available from Rough Trade www.roughtrade.com