Triumphant

from The TakeAway by Tad Wise

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about

Like a surprising number of singing songwriters who attempt big ideas in "pop music" I've only ever participated in one band. This was between '81 to '83. Our name "Paramour" was proposed by my founding partner, Ben Prevo--who continues to play and sing in a variety of soulful styles-- and for whom I wrote this song. Now I don't listen to much new music (which is both a great limitation and I still think, a strength). So I only heard Mark Knopfler's astounding song "Brothers in Arms" a few years ago because my fiancee insisted I must. Then and there I resolved to attempt a song for Ben--the closest thing I'd known to a musical brother. Yes, that took some courage. But it required a lot more to actually send it to him this song and--despite my insistence that "what we had will never come again--" ask him for a concluding solo. At first he refused. Then he wrote saying he was reconsidering. Then he wrote something to the effect, "I've recorded what I felt like recording and you can use it or not." In the end what I liked best was what I'd asked for first: a concluding solo. I used jazz drummer Harvey Sorgen for a deceptively simple (and therefore difficult) part, which he aced. But "Triumphant" became most firmly based in the extended improvisation of the long-time Woodstock multi-instrumentalist (and London ex-pat): Graham Blackburn, who I ended up "conducting," and then editing the results. (I've since written something else in hopes of getting "the Blackburn treatment," for my next and perhaps last album.)

lyrics

Triumphant Words and Music by Tad Wise

Finally came home.
You’ve been gone so long.
Course, I began anew without you.
Here where you said: I’m done.

But we began here 40 years ago…
Stumbling on a shared obsession.
You to make these six strings sing.
Me to shape them into a--a chorded confession.

We found me an electric.
From Leo Fender’s second company.
You said I never learned to respect it. (And you were right.)
But your advice back then was Greek to me.

I wrote ten songs to your one.
Downed seven drinks to your six.
Became prisoner of my own band.
And living proof of my own doomed lyrics…
And poof! We were done.

But what we had will never come again.
Tho I’m better now then I ever was then.
Still I’ll never hear your gentle charging in
As when you finally break thru and lead us…to the end.

Solo

You’ve got a wife and kids and a band they say... over in Ireland.
‘N you too gave up the drink—hooray!
Something like that path is where I stand today.
But it’s never quite like what they think or say.
As ever I change every…five minutes.
Yet it seems I never really change at all.
Songs-pour out oc me yet—the bull still kicking down its stall.

But what we had will never come again.
Tho I’m better now then I ever was then.
Still I’ll never hear your gentle charging in
As when you final-lee break thru and lead us…to the end—
Triumphant.

Grand Adventure Music
BMI 2023

credits

from The TakeAway, released November 18, 2023
Tad Wise: guitars and vocals
Tony Levin: bass
Harvey Sorgen: drums (engineered by Peter Caigan at Utopia Studio)
Graham Blackburn: soprano sax (recorded at Mark Dann Studio)
Ben Prevo: Slide guitar (self-recorded)
Basic tracks, mixing, and mastering: Mark Dan at Mark Dann Studio
Produced by Tad Wise

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about

Tad Wise Woodstock, New York

Tad Wise started writing songs at ten, while raking Bob Dylan’s leaves. He was discovered by John Hall in 2000 who promptly produced Wise’s first CD. Twenty years later Wise returned. First with "For The Record," with Tony Levin & Jerry Marotta. Then with "Mind's Eye." In 2023 he'll release
"The TakeAway," starting with the title track...right now. ... more