husband (and who still is!), and he took a few songs. This began a long relationship. After playing ‘Think Of Rain’ for David he suggested an arrangement was needed. I worked with my Webcor sound-on-sound tape recorder and came up with one, so the only problem left was getting a proper vocal. It was David’s suggestion that the engineer try doubling my voice and, lo and behold, it worked! All my subsequent demos were done this way. While showing these demos, someone suggested to David "Why don’t we record her?" David took the demos to several companies and there was interest from a few of them. David chose Bell Records, which later became Arista Records, because they were a small but successful label and he liked their enthusiasm.
SD: What was the recording of Take A Picture like?
MG: A once-in-a-lifetime experience – literally! It was recorded at Columbia Records’ studios. We began by working with John Simon, who produced ‘Don’t Go Away’, but John soon left the sessions to produce Janis Joplin. John Hill then signed on to produce the rest of the album. David Rosner oversaw everything. Working with David and John was terrific! We all had input on every element, and when there were disagreements, two-out-of-three won. For instance, I wrote the melody for ‘Someone I Know’ as a counterpoint to a Bach chorale. Then I wrote words to that melody. I intended to use the chorale throughout the entire song, but David and John felt the song should appear alone at first, using the chorale as a building element. Two-out-of- three... they won! Although I do sometimes wish I had recorded a version as I had intended...just for me to listen to. I remember working on ‘What Can I Give You’. I was asked to do a ‘scratch vocal’ so the musicians could hear what they were backing. Paul Griffin was a primo New York session player – primo means he could read anything, play anything, be both inventive and perfect every time – walked up to me and said, "That’s the cutest thing I ever heard!". Big compliment coming from him. It was John Hill’s idea to add the bawdy hoots, hollers and cat-whistles, just for fun. John Simon had recorded a track for ‘Think Of Rain’ for The Cyrkle, a band he was producing, but who had just left Columbia. John wanted to use the track for me. It was an inventive arrangement and I agreed to try, but unfortunately, the track wasn’t recorded in a key that was comfortable for me. We wound up using the demo instead, although I wrote and added a string part to it. We phony-stereo’d that track to match the others. On ‘Love’, once again there was a big contribution from John. He organized, wrote and played on the long instrumental intro. We recorded sections in 7/4, 6/4, 5/4 and, at last, 4/4. John had the sections cross-faded
until finally the vocal kicks in when 4/4 arrives. Even David played – he did the organ figure at the end. I thought it was really neat.
SD: It sounds like a really good, creative, collaborative atmosphere!
MG: Columbia Records’ studios had a room with a ping pong table. We had some hilarious times during breaks.
SD: The album cover is gorgeous, and very evocative. Who came up with the concept?
MG: The original idea for the cover was to use Take A Picture as the title and shoot one photo for each song. I don’t know whose idea it was – it wasn’t mine! Shooting those photos was great fun. Joel Brodsky [who shot the famous picture of the shirtless Jim Morrison] was the photographer. We took some pictures in my apartment. ‘Sunday Morning’, for example, with the coffee cup, crossword puzzle and John Hill handing me a cigarette. (Everyone thought it looked as though he was passing me a joint, but he wasn’t!) We went to Central Park for others,
if you like playing with words the way I do, a phrase or rhyme will serve to spark an idea for a song. For example, ‘Thoughts’ is a song made up entirely of two-word phrases. And ‘Love’ is made up of five questions.
SD: What songs of yours are your favourites?
MG: I find it hard to decide, although ‘Think Of Rain’ is one because it was the first song that really worked in my attempt at writing in this mode. ‘Take A Picture’ still expresses something that has always lurked in me, that ‘just-in-case it doesn’t last’ feeling that one gets when things are going really well. ‘I’d Like To See The Bad Guys Win’ [a demo recording collected on Thoughts] is another favourite. I wrote it after hearing the Mae West album Way Out West which was an album of then-current songs. I thought her version of ‘Day Tripper’ was great fun. And my favourite line in ‘
...Bad Guys’ is "a happy ending ending unhappily". The song was used on MTV as background for Ozzy Osbourne’s receiving his Hollywood Boulevard star. Another favourite is ‘Someone I Know’ because it was so hard to work out. There’s great satisfaction in setting yourself a goal and actually accomplishing it.
SD: Is it true that you suffered from stage fright?
MG: There are a number of things that kept me from performing, and I guess you could say stage fright was one of them. I was terribly anxious in the days or weeks before a performance (the few times I actually did), but felt terrific afterwards. What also contributed to my decision not to perform was the growing knowledge I was gaining about the music business. One had to have a manager, a press agent, a booking agent, an accountant and probably a lawyer. People told you what to do, what to say, what to wear, when to be where, etc., etc. For someone who doesn’t much like being
and yet other photos were shot in Joel’s studio. Joel arranged the photos on a board and photographed that. The picture for ‘Sun’ looked peculiar to me... a hair that had blown across my face looked like a scar. We ran out of time trying to rearrange the photos that day. The folks at Bell Records were in a hurry and asked me to choose one photo. I chose the one for ‘Think Of Rain’. I suppose they should have changed the album title but no one thought to do that. Funnily enough, a double album is currently being planned in Korea and they’re going to use the original cover, ‘scar’ and all!
SD: Where do you find inspiration for your lyrics?
MG: I don’t think anyone has been able to answer this question! Usually, you find inspiration in what you feel. But sometimes,
told what to do, the thought was a bit numbing. Besides, what I really wanted to be since childhood was a songwriter! I wanted to write songs that others might sing and have big, big hits with. But things changed, and the music world became a place where if you were a good singer but didn’t write your own songs (or a good writer who didn’t sing) you couldn’t get a record deal. I think it hurt music immeasurably.
SD: Why didn’t you record another album, even though you had some amazing songs?
MG: Simple: no one asked! My refusal to tour, perform and generally ‘support the record’ didn’t encourage the business-types at record companies to offer a follow-up album. Besides, Take A Picture hadn’t done well enough to attract their attention. Bell Records
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