Midnight Locomotion

This was a very, very hard song to do.  It's a long song, April's
vocal parts were complicated and had to be planned carefully so as not
to exceed the capabilities of our equipment, the keyboards and guitar
parts had to be just so, there's a lot going on so it was a bear to
mix, etc.  I wanted to chicken out on this one but we all agreed that
this is a very good song and should go on the album.

I was going for an Allman Bros. double-lead type effect in the
guitars.  Notice also the guitar lick I borrowed from Eddie Money's
"Two Tickets To Paradise" right when Ross sings "yeah yeah yeah".

Didja notice the "heartbeat" effect in the bass and kick drum, right
after he sings "heart was beating through the promenade"?  Or the cute
little melody that appears right after he sings "as the music played"?

One problem we had was that April's singing was too good.  I'm not
kidding!  We wanted to create a "girl chorus" effect, but April's
singing was so precise that in the unison parts it hardly sounded
multitracked at all.  She tried assuming different attitudes and
styles... she even tried singing each track without hearing any of the
others.  It was no use!  They all came out virtually identical.  What
saved us was the miracle of MIDI.  I muted all the tape tracks and
threw the piano tuning off as we recorded each of April's tracks.
Finally her excellent intonation paid off, by being wrong by an exact
amount!  The effect was just what we wanted.  Rumor has it that Barry
Gibb is the same way.