Only Ones from Good Songs by Busman's Holiday

Addison's Notes:

This started out way different and thank the fuckin heavens it landed where it did. Initially we recorded a version with Patrice and Jamie in Montreal but however we described it to them didn't turn out right. The track sounded like a blues bar band and that wasn't gonna do.

We had a real blast laying down the percussion and guitar all in one go at Primary Sound, asking a few good drummer buddies to help us out with it. Lewis planned on the guitar being a scratch track but the energy was right in the room so no additional take was needed. He killed it. I was delighted to assemble a drum set sound between friends, with me taking care of the role of the bass drum.

At some point, I put together that the sound we were pursuing was that of a psychedelic band from Thailand. The video of the group found us somehow and they're amazing, partially because the band has an organic, community vibe to it. It looks like they're playing a wedding perhaps, which is maybe the best music we could imagine for a wedding. That or polka.

Brenda's Friend, or more specially Erin Tobey & Amy Oelsner, made an appearance on the track for this drone vocal part we came up with. We love them and their angelic voices, and as such we asked them to lay down a few more choice vocals for us on the rest of the album.

Lewis asked me to sing like Curtis Mayfield, and so I did.

The Moog bass is sinful all thanks to Lew.


Lew's Notes:

This riff came from a writing session where my string broke and out of exasperation I detuned the whole guitar without thought. After 5 minutes or so playing in the mystery tuning this riff came out. It was much better than whatever I was writing before. The treasure of playing broken things.

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Stephen Deusner wrote of the track:

As they returned home to finish the album at Primary Sound Studios just outside of Bloomington, the songs took them further and further afield. They mutated and metamorphosed, offering glimpses of unlimited possibilities. “These songs churned for a long time,” says Lewis. “We spent a lot of time thinking about the record and paring it down to the barest essentials. The songs all started one way and ended up sounding completely different.” Their first version of opener “Only Ones” sounded like a blues-rock jam but transformed when they became obsessed with a very particular strain of Thai music. Says Addison, “That first version was not the direction we wanted to go with that song, so we kept going with it. Lew had seen a video of a wedding in Thailand where they have this kind of psychedelic marching band with electric guitar, bass, and a mishmash of percussion.” The final version has an exquisitely rambunctious, unpredictable energy, in playful contrast with the band’s careful, exacting songcraft as they deploy pots-and-pans percussion, runaway strings, a disembodied female duet, and a scribbly guitar lick against Addison’s acrobatic falsetto.