Harvest starts out with chanting, drums, bells and calls from a danjiri festival, though not acually the Katsuyama 'quarrelling' shrines that inspired the tune. It took a while but I found chanting that matched the tempo of the tune, which I wanted to pulse along in the rhythm created by the crowd - hence a strong hi-hat on the quarter beats rather than my more typical eighth notes in a tune that's reasonably slow (87 bpm to be precise).
Similarly, the chanting lyrics when my vocals come in are meant to be crowd-like, then the call-and-answer style of the verses matching the danjiri festivals, where certain individuals lead the calls of their group. I had this group ethic in mind with the repeated phrases echoing each other in the outro too, which were pretty much just improvised as the recording kept going and then edited into some semblance of cohesion.
I had originally thought this tune might be all-acoustic, including all the percussion being shakers, tambourines and such. Then I jammed the bass line, which is fairly stomping if I say so myself, and couldn't go back. Kickin' drum sounds just had to go with it. The solo guitar parts, though, are a nod to this original idea, with the Mermaid Guitar itself brought into the action. It's not the easiest guitar to solo on, at least in the bluesy style of this song, having a high action to the fret-board. Worked out pretty well. The rhythm guitar parts are my Takamine and the Mermaid, each part panned hard to one side of the stereo image.
After several takes my voice was pretty shredded but I kept a lot of those later takes as the final version, a la John Lennon on Twist and Shout - nice inappropriate comparison there. Perhaps the episode of Friends where Phoebe has a cold is a better one.
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