the lonely ball
Release Date: 9/96
Album: KEEP YOURSELF AMUSED
Writer: ADAM MARSLAND and ROB CASSELL
Lyrics:
Ahh! Ahh!
Adam sez:
For the first three Cockeyed Ghost albums it was a tradition to end with something completely different from what came before...by then you've made your point, so might as well throw something out from left field. "The Lonely Ball" was an instrumental that grew out of an in-studio jam with me on guitar and Rob on bongos. That weird harmonica-like sound is something called a bowed psaltry. I have no idea what it is; it looked a little like a dulcimer. Rob brought it into the studio one day and put it on the track.
The title is a parody of "The Lonely Bull" and refers to the beach ball in the desert pictured on the cover of KEEP YOURSELF AMUSED.
This was the first complete song to be released that was entirely recorded at Steve Refling's Lincoln Lounge studio, although we had done some guitar and vocal overdubs on the other first album songs there.
There was a minor dust-up when the album came out, with Rob demanding a cowriter credit for having been banging on the bongos when I came up with the chord progression and the melody. Since it did arise out of a jam session I gave him 50%, but his writing contribution was only the beat. It wasn't really worth fighting over.