Decide To Stay And Swim - Song #3: AV In The Sunshine, Man

Part of an ongoing series where I revisit 2003's record, Decide To Stay And Swim 

It has been a long time since I've had this song in the set list, though I used to love playing it live. It was always a treat to dig into that opening riff on an electric guitar and really blast it out, Billy Bragg style.

When I was writing this song, I had just met Andrew Vincent and was starting to get into his music; especially his two brilliant LPs from around this time: "A Short Trip With the Pirates" and "Love The Modern Way" (I wrote about Modern Way for Ottawa Showbox recently). 

As I continued to write it, this song took on a Summer theme and "AV" ended up in the title as both a nod to Andrew, but also as a goofy play on "KC and the Sunshine Band", for whatever reason. Maybe it was the Summer thing propagating in my brain.

I love the instrumental ending of this song. I remember I had a riff idea, similar to the one at the beginning of this track. I envisioned singing a 'la-la-la' to that outro melody. I'm sure I sang it for Dave Draves as you can hear parts of that vocal under the mix. But Draves went above and beyond and built all those counter melodies and harmonies over the line. I love the way it builds and resolves out of a gorgeous climax of sounds. A pretty sweet and hooky moment on this record, I think, and one of my favourites. 

Here is the original where you can hear that intro and outro:

This is the new 2018 take, which is a much more stripped down version:

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Lyrics: 

I'd trust my instincts too 

If I stared that long at my shoes 

But I’ve got these acres plowed

So we can hang around 

With Summer bleached-hair fads 

And turntables from our Dads 

Well I’ve got my Kelp Records on 

And we’ll engrave a song 

If I ever forget her 

In tank-top sunset blurs 

Will you neglect to call me Tom 

And we’re defusing bombs