Track: 2
Title: LIGHTNING TIDE [improvisation]
Authorship: Medford/Babbitt/Ferrari
Publishing: BrowBeat Music, BMI
Recording date: November 1984
Recording place: The G-Spot, 503 Frederick Street, San Francisco, CA
A cassette recording made with a portable device.
Remastered by Carl Salbacka & Leslie Medford
Running Time: 03:34
First appeared on: Green Girl
First released 23 April 2017
[via multiple streaming services]
Leslie Medford : vocals, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, trumpet
Sam Babbitt : electric guitar
Martin Ferrari : bass guitar
Particulars: Medford: “Marty Ferrari, called Thomas, was a friend of mine who two or three times came to SF with me from the East Bay and played bass with Sam and I just for kicks, right when the band was starting and the Oafs were just Sam and me. It wasn’t unusual to be very high and just launch into things without warning. I’m sure this was right at the beginning of a rehearsal, and Sam is just plugging in. Marty picked right up on the little figure I began to play on the 12-string and clattered away. Sam, in his innocence, made the flower open. Beautiful.”
lyrics
LIGHTNING TIDE
In this dream we were riding along
Between the borders of right and wrong.
'Twas there I understood a man
Who came betwixt the golden hand
And went upstream.
O so cheap it was!
And did the diamond skylight fall?!
Or like the trees that grew so tall.
Like it was our time and we would never make it like it was before.
Gross eye taking our time.
We stood as objects made so tall.
Our space was full like a lightning tide.
And like a true word we were taking away a live soul, taking a tide.
I see you before like a doll.
And is the goddess like a sun?
The abacus was on the wending finger snapping time to tide
When we were round
I see you before and it's like a tide when we, once streaming away,
I see you before like a toy.
supported by 4 fans who also own “LIGHTNING TIDE [live & improvised]”
It's a tough thing to choose a top track from a set that includes such exquisite gems as the mysterious folk-blues of "Red Boat," and Medford's beautiful rendition of "Janine." But it's the crystalline version of (the usually nervy) "the Big (Myopian)" that takes the cake in the end. Carl Salbacka
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