The storm that finished the record

The fourth Sunday was supposed to be a tidying day. Eight songs were done, the ninth existed as a verse and a shrug, and I had already told Dave the record would be with him on Monday.

At eleven we ran the verse a few times and it kept collapsing in the same place. Nico left at midnight. I stayed because the reel had twelve minutes left on it and it felt wasteful to stop.

The mic was already up

The ribbon sits about two metres back, pointed at the corner where the wall meets the window. It is there for the room, not for the guitar, and on a normal night all it adds is a little air.

At about ten past three the rain arrived the way it does here twice a summer — sideways, all at once, loud enough on the glass that I stopped playing to listen to it.

I did not start the take. It was already running.

That is the whole trick, if there is one. The tape had been rolling since the last attempt at the verse, so the storm, the pause, and the version of the song I played into it are all one continuous piece of quarter-inch.

What Dave said about it

He listened once, said the rain was louder than the guitar, and asked whether I wanted him to pull it down. I said no. He never brought it up again, and the mix he sent back has the storm sitting exactly where it sat.

The song is called Rain at Three. It is six minutes and twelve seconds long, it is the only thing on the record I did not write down first, and it is the reason the album is finished instead of still being eight songs and a shrug.