Today we’re excited to share this captivatingly beautiful song from Louise Goffin’s sixth solo album, Songs From The Mine.
With a lifetime spent soaking up the finest music of her generation (her parents are Carole King and Gerry Goffin), Goffin used the benefit of her heritage and experience to deliver a rich palette of beautifully written and performed songs.
For “Some of Them Will Fool You,” Goffin’s simple strumming in support of her lovely, velvety vocal aid in the sweet and easy delivery of this cautionary tale.
Goffin shares the story behind the song:
“Steve Moakler and I met in Nashville a few summers ago and we were sitting in a room at Kobalt Music with a couple a guitars saying, ‘Hello, how are you, want to write a song?’
“We got along easily, he had run a successful kickstarter campaign and was already starting to take the reins to have a career on his own terms, which was an inspiration to learn from and be around.
“We were talking about life and our conversation was philosophical...about living true to yourself and how to steer clear of the lies we are tempted to believe. We had a lot of the song written but never wrote a complete chorus for it, in that we never had a title and hook line.
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“It was a promising unfinished song on an iPhone memo that I carried around and kept wishing that ellusive hook and title would make itself known. Eventually I went back to it nearly a year later. I took my dog and my guitar to the desert and became entranced with the promise of this song, so determined to break it open with a hook.
“When the title ‘Some of Them Will Fool You’ came to me, everything else fit into place. It still was over 5 minutes long and I didn't know what to take out. Before recording it, my songwriting friend Darrell Brown, who I elected my ‘A&R Prince for a day’ before I went into recording, suggested I drop two additional lines that set up the hook to every chorus to get us there quicker. It was a great suggestion even though the lines were good ones, the song didn't need them.
“I also travelled to London with a recorded demo version of me playing the song on acoustic guitar and a vocal, and put most of the keyboard wurly and organ parts down from garageband while in transit on airplanes.
“Sometimes music is like drawing or painting. You're not painting the canvas, its calling to you asking you to give it the colors its needs. Rushing a song or a recording is like sending your child to the prom wearing clothes they don't even fit into. All songs are crying to be completed and loved into existence. Songwriting isn't something to do to get somewhere. Songwriting is something that is a part of living while you already are somewhere.
“Ain’t nothing somewhere else that's any better a song than where you are right now.”
Since the release of 2008’s Bad Little Animals, Goffin has stockpiled material while she busied herself with various projects, most notably as producer/co-writer of Carole King’s first holiday record A Holiday Carole, which earned a Grammy nomination.
Then, asked to perform at the 2014 MusiCares Person of the Year gala to honor Carole King, Louise didn’t have to dig deep to create an EP of songs for the occasion that would be the springboard for the full length, Songs From The Mine.
Recorded in December 2013 and early January in Los Angeles, with some recording done at the Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, Holiday Music Motel, Louise produced and played piano, B-3, ukulele, and guitar, and added a touch of snare drum and tambourine with guests Alice Cooper and Johnny Depp on backing vocals and handclaps on the playful track “Watching The Sky Turn Blue.”
Find out more at http://louisegoffin.com