Inside The Music
I generally write music by improvising freely on a keyboard and allowing my brain and fingers to meander until I hear something I enjoy. If I like the emerging idea enough, I'll record a quick sketch into my Logic Pro MIDI sequencer and file it away for a rainy day. In some cases the sketch inspires a finished song and the initial keyboard part becomes the foundation for the rest of the arrangement; when it comes to performing, this is the part I'll play on stage, albeit with a few minor variations as the mood takes me.
I can think of only two Stewart / Gaskin songs which started life without such a fundamental keyboard part: one was our cover of The Lovin' Spoonful's 'Summer in the City' (constructed out of assorted keyboard overdubs), the other was 'The Cloths of Heaven' from our album Spin. Figuring out how to play the former song live was quite a headache, because the keyboard parts had been played on several different instruments using a variety of sounds. Happily, 'The Cloths of Heaven' was far more straightforward - the recorded version has a nice guitar part played by Andy Reynolds, which I doubled using a steel string guitar patch on my trusty Korg 01/W keyboard. Where the guitar pauses, I carry on with chords which I voiced as simply as possible to avoid disturbing the tranquil flow of the song.
Since this keyboard part only springs to life when we play 'The Cloths of Heaven' live, I thought you might like to hear it, check out the chord sequence and maybe play along with the song. If so, please read on!
I n t r o
This chiming motif recurs throughout the song and serves as its four-bar introduction. Though the tonality is B major, I've notated it using only two sharps for reasons I'll explain later!
V e r s e
Here's the part I play in the second verse, which starts at 1.44 with the lyric 'If I were your shining bride'. You'll see that in bars 5-6 and 13-14 the tonality temporaily shifts to D major, which is technically a key change - however, to avoid cluttering the chart by continually changing between B and D major key signatures, I've used the D major key (two sharps) throughout.
B r i d g e
In the first eight bars of the 12-bar Bridge the right hand plays lower-pitched chords, notated using the bass clef. The mid-range chords in the final four bars return to the treble clef.
C h o r u s
I composed the chorus sequence with another song in mind many years before writing 'The Cloths of Heaven' (the earlier song never made the cut). As you can see, the right hand chords are simple 5ths, giving the chorus a rather austere, solemn quality. Keyboard geek alert: when playing this part live I omit the bass line, play the 5ths with my left hand on a Korg 01/W and track the chordal movement with higher-pitched 4ths (B & E, C# & F#, D# & G#, etc.) on a Korg Kronos patch based on a user sample of Barb singing 'ooh'. As Spinal Tap keyboardist Viv Savage points out, "Oh yeah - I've got two hands here, I can do it."
I n s t r u m e n t a l
The instrumental passage which occurs at 1.26 follows the first chorus and leads back to the second verse. It's played again at the end of the song with a rallentando (slow down) into a sustained final chord, as shown here.
P l a y A l o n g
The structure of 'The Cloths of Heaven' is
Intro / Verse 1 / Bridge 1 / Chorus 1 / Instrumental 1 / Verse 2 / Bridge 2 / Chorus 2 / Instrumental 2.
The first verse, bridge, chorus and instrumental sections are basically the same music as the notated parts above, but my live keyboard part on Verse 1 is sparser and omits the melodic figures in bars 1, 2, 4, 9, 10 and 12. Here's the continuous keyboard part starting from Verse 2 through to the end:
If you fancy playing along, this extract from the song starts with a count into the first Instrumental section and carries on to the end:
'The Cloths of Heaven' is performed by Barbara Gaskin (vocals), Dave Stewart (keyboards), Andy Reynolds (guitar) and Gavin Harrison (percussion). You can hear the whole song in our YouTube video.
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The Cloths of Heaven (D. Stewart)
If I had the cloths of heaven, filled with gold and silver light
I would lay them underneath your feet
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths of night
I would spread the cloths under your feet
But I, being poor, have only my dreams
No gold and silver cloths of heaven mine to give
I have spread my dreams under your feet
Tread softly now, because you tread on my dreams
Tread on my dreams
If I were your shining bride, dressed in gold and silver light
Would you love me till the day I die?
If I wore the robes of heaven, shining with the stars of night
Would you love me till the day I die?
But I, being poor, have only my dreams
No gold and silver cloths of heaven mine to give
I have spread my dreams under your feet
Tread softly now, because you tread on my dreams
Tread softly now, because you tread on...
Tread on my dreams
Lyrics adapted from He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven (W. B. Yeats)
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Thanks for reading!
Dave Stewart, UK
'The Cloths of Heaven' by Dave Stewart, © Budding Music 1990.
From the album Spin by Dave Stewart & Barbara Gaskin, ℗ Broken Records BRCDLP-04.
See Inside The Music Vols. 1-3 for more Stewart / Gaskin song deconstructions.
Stewart / Gaskin home page
