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Out This Open Window

from This Perfect Day by Bill Gable

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    Signed copy of the "This Perfect Day" CD by Bill Gable, which includes an attached 8-page booklet with song lyrics and images.

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  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    "This Perfect Day" CD by Bill Gable, which includes an attached 8-page booklet with song lyrics and images.

    Includes unlimited streaming of This Perfect Day via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 5 days
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about

My strongest recollection of working on this song is how many lyric versions I had to work through – by the time we recorded this I had almost 50 different variations in my file. Like other songs of mine, it required key signature changes within the song to feel natural to me, and I experimented a lot trying to find the approach I felt best supported the inherent cadence of the lyric, which seemed to also be in a state of never-ending evolution.

I produced THIS PERFECT DAY with my old friend Roscoe Beck. One day during production Leonard Cohen called Roscoe to see if Roscoe would be willing to produce demos of a couple of Leonard’s new songs the next day. We spent the entire next day at Roscoe’s studio, where the recordings took place. I had just several days before recorded my piano on “Out This Open Window” there and the session with Leonard remains very connected in my mind to this song.

One of Leonard’s brand new songs was “Democracy is Coming to the USA.” Once we started recording, I noticed that with every new take Leonard seemed to be singing different lyrics. At the end of the session, Leonard left his lyric sheet on the music stand and I saw he had numerous alternative verses still in consideration. I somehow I wound up with Leonard’s lyrics and I ran across them years later, after “Democracy Is Coming to the USA” had been released. I discovered that Leonard’s final lyric was different than the versions he was working on that day. I guess no amount of travail is unwarranted if it leads you where you want to go. Just like Disneyland, most of the work lies underground where no one can see it.

lyrics

someday this will all come back to me
from far away, buckling my knees
the memory of this perfect day
suspended in limbo
summer leaves underneath a frozen pond
each of us never feeling we belong
what is it that keeps the simple truth
so hard to believe
impossible to count upon?
all my cares go out this open window
throwing everything I know out this open window

last night after making love to you
I lay here staring at the sky
and everything I ever thought I knew
flooded my memory
somewhere far away it carried me
to a place beyond all resistance
what is there a man could ever need
to bring him peace of mind
beyond this existence?
all my cares go out this open window
throwing everything I know out this open window

credits

from This Perfect Day, released December 8, 2003
Bill Gable: piano, synths, organ, guitars, percussion and vocals
Steve Rodby: acoustic bass
Tom Brechtlein: drums
Rob Lockhart: soprano sax
Larry Steelman: synth

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about

Bill Gable Los Angeles, California

BILL GABLE is an uncompromisingly original American singer-songwriter, producer, arranger and multi-instrumentalist whose music spans the boundaries between pop, jazz and world music.

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