Leroy Justice The Band Twilight
[mp3 asins=B000TDYJLE title=”The Song”]
The song is originally off Northern Lights-Southern Cross but I recently got this other version from Bradley in my band [Editor’s Note: an early demo take appears on the 2001 remastered CD edition]. It’s this real broken down version with piano and this really breathy, close-mic’d vocal by Robbie Robertson, and it feels like the day or night right after he wrote it. It’s just so crushing and good. I keep going back to it to learn how to play it I love it so much.
And then the album version is this trippy, spacey, calypso version with this weird synth in it. It’s just SO different to this haunting, late night song that I love. Hearing these two takes reminds me of Leroy Justice’s process, where songs begin with me late at night with guitar quietly coming up with something. Then, I know when I take it to the band it will become something else.
The lyric – “Don’t leave me alone in the twilight/ ‘Cause twilight is the loneliest time of day” – also fits right into that late night headspace. A lot of it starts for me in my bedroom or somewhere else, alone with low light and singing quietly, and it builds from there. (Jason Gallagher of Leroy Justice)
Broken Down Version
Original Single