With the Calgary CD release show only a week away, here’s another track from Helios.

I wrote “French Rosé” as a celebration of late spring, when the sun gets very bright and people start wearing bare arms and spending lots of time outside. Here in Vancouver, we could really use a day like that right about now.

The lyrics in “French Rosé” blend imagination and inspiration, in that I have very little real-life experience with designer fashions, but a deep familiarity with drinking wine in the afternoon. I will confess to an unhealthy addiction to Fluevog shoes, but my only claim to anything Chanel is the lyric in this song.

I wanted to write something that captured the feeling of the South Granville neighborhood, which is an entertaining mix of apartment ghetto dwellers (like myself) and the fabulous residents of upper Shaughnessy. In May, a symphony of flowers plays along the avenues and everyone and their tiny dog comes out to stroll.

Another source of inspiration was the thirty-two-bar songwriting form, which was very popular in early 20th century pop music, but has since fallen out of style. I’ve always loved this form because it doesn’t use verses and choruses – it’s more like the whole song is a chorus.

My sister, Steph Richards, joins me on the horns to add more Tin Pan Alley and Brill Building flavor to the track.

Hope to see you at the CD release shows in Calgary and Vancouver.

Sarah St. Catherine – French Rosé

Here it is, kids! The first taste of the long awaited Helios.

While you wait for the full album, here is a full-length mp3 to tide you over.

One of my favorite things about “Reverie” is the pulsing Lowrey organ Mike Little played on this track. The Lowrey is a somewhat obscure instrument, and one of the jewels of the Audities collection. You might recognize the Lowrey from the looped sound at the top of the Who’s “Baba O’Riley”.

The Lowrey part was actually an afterthought by Mike and DK, after we’d laid down Mike’s Hammond B3 track. Mike went over to the Lowrey and started messing around, and when he began playing those eighth-note triads, DK and I lost our minds in the control room.

It’s one of my favorite parts about making music, experiencing a moment of true collaboration. It’s one thing to write a song and have it come from an authentic place, but it’s impossible to be sure how another person will hear it. When another musician jumps in and not only gets the emotion of the song, but then increases and intensifies it… That’s a magical feeling that comes back to me every time I press play.

Enjoy, my friends.

Sarah St. Catherine – Reverie