Music by Chris May and Tom Sanderson, words by Tom Sanderson

Desert asphalt lines converge
into oasis silver shines
The golden orb dissolves into the night

Blinking city luminescence
Beacons brightly blind dark eyes
Draws me like a nightfly towards the light

Conflict in my soul
between sensation and complete happiness

Seas of people, timeless glow
The smells of ethanol and smoke
and clanking coins electric beeps fanfare

The senses feed past appetite
that translates to a sleepless daze
Elation simultaneous despair

Conflict in my soul
between sensation and complete happiness

Here I am in the lights of Las Vegas
Got a wad full of twenties to lay on the table
My best threads are on and my hair’s slicked back, yeah
Gonna have a good time, ’cause I’m willing and able

Gonna see every show and I’ll hit the casinos
I’ll meet some new cats at the player’s convention
Eat some fifty-bill steaks and some twenty-year glasses
Haven’t seen it all yet, but it’s my intention

Sun through hotel window beams
A headache empty billfold pain
Room smells faint of cigarettes and Glade

And on the freeway empty noise
behind my back is burning fire
Furnace forge with fortunes newly made

Conflict in my soul
between sensation and complete happiness

Tom’s Notes

Around 1997, my friend Chris May had an original piece he was working on that he called “Chaos.” This piece of music had lyrics he had co-written with his step-sister Danielle, a sample of which is below:

“Every lie is a ritual / a passing freight train / pushing through the circle of fear”

The music and melody was the bulk of what makes up the verses to this song. There was something compelling about this “A” section that made me want to revisit and help refine it. I recall “Chaos” had an instrumental section that was not very developed which proceeded to a second stanza of lyrics that had a different meter and melody from the first verse. The music to the “B” section might just have been a work in progress.

Chris and I tried to include “Chaos” in two projects but the song ultimately proved too ambitious with its undefined instrumental section to finish. However we made some progress on it in 2000/2001, adding the main riff of the song while he an I jammed on electric piano and guitar one day. I made two attempts by myself in the early 2000s to complete the song, adding a rough version of the current chorus but was not satisfied with either. I think the original lyrics are by Danielle and Chris are great but the music was suggesting a different narrative to me.

I guess the lyrics suggested to me a clear picture when I made this third attempt in 2004. I added a bridge that was a stark juxtaposition to the verses and chorus. I don’t think I want to dissect the lyrics but I think the Vegas strip might not be the real focus here but a good metaphor. (at least that’s one interpretation). I made a recording by myself of the song twenty years ago. Reviewing my correspondence, it seemed like I left some tracks upon for Chris to record vocals but we never got together to wrap it up. For that reason I considered this recording more or less an elaborate demo.

Two decades later my brother Brian decided to revisit the composition and he completed most of the song. I suppose my take on the song was a lament – Whereas Brian really lightened up the heavy tone in the choruses and made it more accessible. Brian introduced some nice interplay between the piano and electric piano. His honky-tonk piano in the bridge was really top-notch – I had never thought of introducing that. He invited me to sing and play guitars on his recording.

I added timpani, drums and chimes first, though in the end I favored Brian’s drum track. I then added guitars. I was pretty satisfied with the first guitar solo, though it was pretty noisy. I tried to re-record it but couldn’t get the same feel so I left the noisy take in. I found my voice not as cooperative with the tenor notes as it had been twenty years earlier but I eventually recorded all the backing vocals (three parts doubled). I recorded the lead vocal in two tracks and I did a composite of the two. In the chorus, the better segments became the lead and the not-as-good segments became the double. Brian wanted to add a pulsating synth to lead into the main riff but he ran out of time before vacation so I added one as the last element to the recording.

Brian’s Notes

Tom’s 2004 demo of “Meadowtown” (Las Vegas literally translated) has frequented my favorites playlist for many years. The “Elvis Bridge” (as I called it) broke up the darker, moodier verses and formed the song into a study of contrasts. That is similar to the way I see Las Vegas, actually, with a pleasant, inviting exterior, bright lights and glam; yet with a plague of issues, money-making, drugs and darkness at the interior. I agreed with “behind my back is burning fire / Furnace forge with fortunes newly made” and thought that summed up my sentiment rather well.

My goal in setting out to tackle a new Meadowtown was to do a project with Tom; it had been way too long since our last collaboration. My initial thoughts were to preserve the song structure as it was (since I liked the Elvis Bridge, as I mentioned), and would layer in a large number of instruments, vocals, synths beyond where the demo got to. It was a good excuse for me to become more familiar with Logic Pro.

Recreating the music of the existing demo was the first step, and the easiest part, since I had a guidebook. I originally delivered to Tom a sample containing piano, Rhodes, organ, bass, drums, Orbit Moods (the synth arpeggios during the last chorus). Tom — knowing full well the amount of work ahead — graciously accepted the early samples, incorporated them and proceeded to layer in more instruments. He added his own draft of the drums, strings. He felt strongly about adding some tympani to the recording, which I warmed up to after I heard it. Tom finished the guitars within the next week.

Tom’s vocals tracks came next. There were 12 in all and were probably the most complex part of the song. During this time I added synth pads, a double-felt piano, and a newer revision of the drum track. I added one 5th-harmony vocal track that Tom kindly accepted, and repaired from my low-quality recording. Last, Tom also added the pulsating synths and did the tedious process of merging, mixing and mastering.

Info

Brian Sanderson: keyboards, percussion, harmony vocals

Tom Sanderson: vocals, backing vocals, guitars, additional keyboards

Sound Libraries / Keyboards:

• Keyscape sound library used for: Bright Grand Piano, 70’s Rhodes Amp, Chromatic percussion.
• Logic Pro Instruments: Studio drum kit Portland, customized 80’s bass program, “Orbit moods” synth programming (last chorus arpeggios), Voyager synth library (the “spacey” low-volume synth on the verses.)
• Roland FA-06 used for: tympani, strings, LFO synth (pulsating)

Image credit, Adobe stock image.