The Jasmine Trade
Song #3: Sugar Skull
Sugar Skull
The Corner Laughers
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Firstly, the Wikipedia cut & paste:
The word calavera, Spanish for "skull", can refer to a number of cultural phenomena associated with the Mexican celebration of the Day of the Dead and the Roman Catholic holiday All Souls Day. Calaveras de azúcar ("sugar skulls") are used to adorn altars and can be eaten.
Sugar art was brought to the New World by Italian missionaries in the 17th century. The first Church mention of sugar art was from Palermo at Easter time when little sugar lambs and angels were made to adorn the side altars in the Catholic Church.
Mexico, abundant in sugar production and lacking money to buy fancy imported European church decorations at the time, learned quickly from the friars how to make sugar art for their religious festivals. Clay molded sugar figures of angels, sheep and sugar skulls go back to the Colonial Period 18th century. Sugar skulls represented a departed soul, had the name written on the forehead and was placed on the home ofrenda or gravestone to honor the return of a particular spirit. Sugar skull art reflects the folk art style of big happy smiles, colorful icing and sparkly tin and glittery adornments. Common ingredients for making sugar skulls include powdered sugar, egg white, corn syrup, vanilla, and corn starch. Typically, sugar skulls need to dry overnight or for several hours. Sugar skulls are labor intensive and made in very small batches in the homes of sugar skull makers. However, these artisans are disappearing as fabricated and imported candy skulls take their place.
My personal liner notes, which do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Corner Laughers as an entity:
Don't get me wrong, any time anyone outside of our inner circle takes the time to write a review of our album for a music website, magazine, or blog, it is a huge honor and cause for celebration and rejoicing, whether they give us an A+ or a 0/10. However, it seems like almost every review I've seen declares the album to be "sunshiney", "happy", "fun", "summery", "feel-good", etc. Maybe the front cover and some of the instrumentation and arrangements give that impression, but if you read or listen to the lyrics (most of which we've published on the Bandcamp site), you'll find that this is not the case at all. The album was built around a trilogy of songs dedicated to our genius friend and collaborator Brad Johnson who committed suicide in 2009 at the peak of his creativity. The whole Mystery Lawn Music collective was kind of his idea and one of his big dreams. He was always encouraging us to put together a scene of like-minded people, but based in the suburbs and smaller towns, not in SF. Three years later, it exists. We have whole a stable of amazing musicians, record producers, graphic artists, videographers, writers, journalists, photographers, web designers, and even architects and handymen. Whatever you need done, there's someone at Mystery Lawn who can do it for you. (The only thing we haven't figured out is how to make any kind of money.) I only wish Brad could have seen his dream become reality.
"Sugar Skull" is, in my opinion, the most poetic of the 3 eulogies. Karla based the lyric on a quote from Brad:
"Whenever I get bummed ... I think about the rain and the wind. Leaves falling. Halloween and my birthday ... a wistful melancholy.. A painfully pleasant longing. Dude, it's such a Scorpio thing, I swear. "
The part about "all of our songs are in F sharp" was a running joke we had with Brad. He used to cover Belle & Sebastian's "Piazza New York Catcher" in his live act, but he played it in literal F#, with all the crazy barre chords. To my robotic, logical mind this made no sense. I explained to him "Brad, no one plays guitar in F#. They either capo up 2 and play in E or tune down 1/2 step and play in G, which is what I'm pretty sure the Belle & Sebastian guy does". He didn't believe me, and after that he started writing songs in F# just to spite me.
Notes On The Recording
*The marching band in the ending section is all Charlie, overdubbing himself on a variety of different drums. The recording and editing of this portion caused some of the most contentious arguments in Corner Laughers' history.
*I think we may have recorded the drums & bass soon after Michael Jackson died because it sounds like Charlie & I are doing an "Off The Wall" / "Thriller" kind of groove in the verses.
*It is not in F sharp.
Sugar Skull
The Corner Laughers
Download Share
Firstly, the Wikipedia cut & paste:
The word calavera, Spanish for "skull", can refer to a number of cultural phenomena associated with the Mexican celebration of the Day of the Dead and the Roman Catholic holiday All Souls Day. Calaveras de azúcar ("sugar skulls") are used to adorn altars and can be eaten.
Sugar art was brought to the New World by Italian missionaries in the 17th century. The first Church mention of sugar art was from Palermo at Easter time when little sugar lambs and angels were made to adorn the side altars in the Catholic Church.
Mexico, abundant in sugar production and lacking money to buy fancy imported European church decorations at the time, learned quickly from the friars how to make sugar art for their religious festivals. Clay molded sugar figures of angels, sheep and sugar skulls go back to the Colonial Period 18th century. Sugar skulls represented a departed soul, had the name written on the forehead and was placed on the home ofrenda or gravestone to honor the return of a particular spirit. Sugar skull art reflects the folk art style of big happy smiles, colorful icing and sparkly tin and glittery adornments. Common ingredients for making sugar skulls include powdered sugar, egg white, corn syrup, vanilla, and corn starch. Typically, sugar skulls need to dry overnight or for several hours. Sugar skulls are labor intensive and made in very small batches in the homes of sugar skull makers. However, these artisans are disappearing as fabricated and imported candy skulls take their place.
My personal liner notes, which do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Corner Laughers as an entity:
Don't get me wrong, any time anyone outside of our inner circle takes the time to write a review of our album for a music website, magazine, or blog, it is a huge honor and cause for celebration and rejoicing, whether they give us an A+ or a 0/10. However, it seems like almost every review I've seen declares the album to be "sunshiney", "happy", "fun", "summery", "feel-good", etc. Maybe the front cover and some of the instrumentation and arrangements give that impression, but if you read or listen to the lyrics (most of which we've published on the Bandcamp site), you'll find that this is not the case at all. The album was built around a trilogy of songs dedicated to our genius friend and collaborator Brad Johnson who committed suicide in 2009 at the peak of his creativity. The whole Mystery Lawn Music collective was kind of his idea and one of his big dreams. He was always encouraging us to put together a scene of like-minded people, but based in the suburbs and smaller towns, not in SF. Three years later, it exists. We have whole a stable of amazing musicians, record producers, graphic artists, videographers, writers, journalists, photographers, web designers, and even architects and handymen. Whatever you need done, there's someone at Mystery Lawn who can do it for you. (The only thing we haven't figured out is how to make any kind of money.) I only wish Brad could have seen his dream become reality.
"Sugar Skull" is, in my opinion, the most poetic of the 3 eulogies. Karla based the lyric on a quote from Brad:
"Whenever I get bummed ... I think about the rain and the wind. Leaves falling. Halloween and my birthday ... a wistful melancholy.. A painfully pleasant longing. Dude, it's such a Scorpio thing, I swear. "
The part about "all of our songs are in F sharp" was a running joke we had with Brad. He used to cover Belle & Sebastian's "Piazza New York Catcher" in his live act, but he played it in literal F#, with all the crazy barre chords. To my robotic, logical mind this made no sense. I explained to him "Brad, no one plays guitar in F#. They either capo up 2 and play in E or tune down 1/2 step and play in G, which is what I'm pretty sure the Belle & Sebastian guy does". He didn't believe me, and after that he started writing songs in F# just to spite me.
Notes On The Recording
*The marching band in the ending section is all Charlie, overdubbing himself on a variety of different drums. The recording and editing of this portion caused some of the most contentious arguments in Corner Laughers' history.
*I think we may have recorded the drums & bass soon after Michael Jackson died because it sounds like Charlie & I are doing an "Off The Wall" / "Thriller" kind of groove in the verses.
*It is not in F sharp.