1987_0718 : Charitable Girl

Description

This started off as three separate songs, one of which was View From a Train (a Retrospective) (June ’84), which formed the basis for the intro section. It was my expression of dismay, begetting a pop song. Could I have found a politer way of labeling someone’s lasciviousness? It all came together the magical evening of May 15, 1986. I decided to do it as one of the five songs I would demo at Trax Recording that June, and to try out my new Mirage Sampling Keyboard. Due to velocity problems with my sequencer, I got stalled in the process of recording that particular song, and had to resume it on July 18, 1987 in order to put down the final keyboard tracks, vocals, and get a mix.

I amazed myself with the accuracy of my vocals during the second session date. With a year to think about the song, I had rehearsed the vocals to the point where they were right in the pocket on each take.

This song gave me my first airplay on Ken Fusion’s local music show on KROQ, November 2, 1987. I was thrilled to be on immediately after The Cure’s 10:15 Saturday Night, which had been a tremendous influence on my early songwriting.

The reception from KROQ was warm:

Jim “Poorman”:    … Okay, tell me what we’re hearing today.

Ken Fusion:    Tonight we have a song called “Charitable Girl”, and it’s by Eric Scott, he’s a guy in his mid-twenties, from Los Angeles, and it’s especially notable that he does everything… He wrote the song, he sings, he does the guitars, the keyboards, and the drum programming… he does it all, ladies! He’s in his mid-twenties, he’s in Los Angeles, please listen to Eric Scott and “Charitable Girl.” It’s local music on KROQ…

Poorman:       … Local music… !  

(cues “Charitable Girl”)

Swedish Igle:    That was a good one, Mr. Fusion and thank you, Mr. Poorman for another great show… !

I got a lot of positive feedback after that; several people who had been listening in as they did regularly to the show called me to tell me that they liked it.