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"Julio" originally appeared on 1997's Art Is A Lie, Baby, the debut solo CD of Kaptain Karl. I loved it, but one day I thought of a prequel verse and then the song felt complete. I added what appears here as verse 1, answering the question of how he came to be drinking at the bar in the first place.
I love the chords to this song. F, am, GbM7, F, C7, F, am, Eb, D7, C7, F, C, F, C, bbm, then that great outro over F, am, Eb, D, C over and over. I knew I wanted a saxophone solo and I thought about who I knew who could play saxophone really well over those outro chords. There was no one I knew personally, so I did it myself using the David Gilmour method. Pink Floyd's guitarist, singer, and songwriter records any given solo several times, improvising, then listens back and picks his favorite bits out of each take to create a master solo.
Lyrics:
Julio heard the yell for help between the sighs
The silence of the silo, or maybe it was noise
And Julio walked around the corners of his everything he had in life
And when he found an opening, slipped quietly back inside
And he ran to tell his wife, but Amelia wasn't there
She'd only left a word or two for Julio to find.
Julio punched him in the mouth because he seemed
A little bit too ugly, and a little bit too smart
And Julio hid behind the barn with all the spiders and the stale grass
Made his wife a present out of bailer twine and colored glass
And he dropped it in the mail, on the day before he left
And no one's ever heard of poor old Julio again.
Next song: Julio, pt. III