1: Naked and Savage (The Mission)
Wayne: Julianne & I talked about which Mission song to cover and 'Butterfly On A Wheel' was mentioned, mainly because that's a song that I'd originally written for Julianne back in the late '80's. But we both felt that was a bit obvious so we decided to go for something a bit more obscure. Naked & Savage was the b-side to The Mission's first single and we played with this for a while. I sent Julianne a piano piece that I recorded which she then sped up, substituting another instrument playing the same thing, and added the beats, more keyboards, and sent it back to me. I added guitars, harmonica, vocals and, bit by bit, we got there.
Julianne: A brilliant piece of fortuitous serendipity happened here. At one point in the mixing process, Wayne sent me a mix of the song for comments/approval, but had forgotten to put my lead vocal in. I thought it was an alternative mix, but it was in fact a mistake. We were both excited by the mistake and so decided to make the song more of a chill-out duet. It's far more interesting and rich than the version I'd sung on my own.
2: Ordinary World (Duran Duran)
Wayne: Without ever being a fan of Duran Duran (but every girl I've ever met is) I do really like this song. I wanted to take it away from the rock ballad that the Duranies version is. My way into this was actually by listening to the Thom Yorke solo album and being inspired by the electronic rhythms he used on that album. I know it sounds nothing like that now but that's where the germ of this came from for me. Of course it evolved into something else as most things thankfully do.
Julianne: Now, I have always been a Duran Duran fan. I'd even seen them play live at Aston University in 1981, before they were massive. I loved them, used to go out to clubs and would dance to Planet Earth like a good little New Romantic. Had I rolled the ball on this one, it would probably have been closer to the ballad version and so would have been nothing new really, but Wayne rolled and this is where the ball went. It's much more inventive than what I'd have done, I love it.
3: Enjoy The Silence (Depeche Mode)
Wayne: This is one of Julianne's choices. I do like Depeche and I feel that their music has aged incredibly well, unlike a lot of stuff from the '80's. This is a great song, and a great version, I think. It was easy to come along and sprinkle some fairy dust on what Julianne had already done with it.
Julianne: I never really liked Depeche Mode, but I certainly didn't dislike them. I knew they were good but they'd dipped under my radar for some reason. However, when I heard this single back in 1990, at first I thought it was like something David Sylvian might have written and it woke me up to the band. I loved the melody but wanted to really slow it down and make the music more brooding to reflect the depth of the lyric. The Depeche Mode version is like a sunny day with a mackerel sky, ours is more of a sunset through bruised clouds.
4: Another Lonely Day (Ben Harper)
Wayne: I only started listening to Ben Harper in the last few years and it was my wife who actually first played this to me and said she thought I could do a good version. Dunno what she was trying to say to me! Anyway, I started playing a piano version of this at my solo shows in the last couple of years, which evolved into this version for Curios with Julianne's help.
Julianne: My input on this is minimal, just a little bit of backing vocal here and there. It needed absolutely nothing else. It's all about the simplicity.
5: Wichita Lineman (Glen Campbell)
Wayne: Another of Julianne's choices but who doesn't like this song? Julianne sang this first and left some gaps for me to add my vocals and with a little to and fro'ing it became a duet. I think it's quite unique because I'm not sure it's ever been recorded like this before where it's a conversation between a man and a woman. One of my fave tracks on the album.
Julianne: I feel it really works as this conversation between the two people. It almost accentuates or magnifies the feeling of longing and yearning. It's got to be one of the most romantic songs ever written. I have no time for the cliché of chocolates, flowers, palaces and weekends in Paris; this is a man at work, he has a hard job and he works away from home. He misses his woman, she misses him. I hear this as a truly romantic song about love, between down to earth people. It's about real love. ‘And to need someone more than want them, and to want them for all time?’ That's what we all want, isn't it?
6: Ashes To Ashes (David Bowie)
Wayne: Another song that I'd been playing at my solo shows on piano. I know a lot of people thinks it's sacrilegious to cover Bowie and I must admit it was a challenge but I believe the way to do it is to take the song and make it your own, which I feel we've done here. I do feel, however, if there is one track on this album that may polarise listeners this would be it. But sod 'em. This gives me goose bumps every time I hear it and I reckon Mr. Bowie himself would quite like this, if he ever gets to hear it.
Julianne: Again, I am just a little John the Baptist to Wayne's Jesus on this. But I am honoured to have untied his sandal straps; and I love Bowie immensely.
7: I Go To Sleep (Ray Davies)
Wayne: This is a song that Julianne was playing around with for a while without finding a way into it. To got her creativity going. I went online and put the title into YouTube and up came all these very disparate versions - some wonderful and some not so. Besides the obvious Pretenders version, which we all know, other notable and worthy versions are by Sonny & Cher, Marion Maerz, and Peggy Lee! But my absolute fave version is the original Ray Davies demo of this that I unearthed in my research. I sent the links to Julianne and next morning there was an MP3 in my inbox from Julianne and she was on her way. I got to play auto-harp on this, of which I am most pleased.
Julianne: Yes, I was getting all tangled up in this, lost. It got the better of me. I have always loved this song and am a great admirer of Ray Davies. I have an old reel-to-reel tape of me singing 'Lazing on a Sunny Afternoon' at age four and a half, so I'm a long-time fan. Wayne got me out of the doldrums on this by sending me the links to all the various versions of it. I heard them, digested them, bits may have come out subconsciously, but whatever, I found the essence of what the song meant to me and took it from there. Wayne's additions to this, especially the backing vocals and the music box in the last chorus, made it nicely 3D for me.
8: Where The Wild Roses Grow (Nick Cave and Kylie Minogue)
Wayne: This is the song that got the ball rolling for us. Julianne was recording a version of this song with another friend of hers for another project and she asked me if I would be Nick Cave to her Kylie. Of course I said yes and crooned away to the track she sent me. Then that project fell through and Julianne was left with the track which she completely re-worked and didn't know what to do with. One of us, can't remember who now, suggested we could do an album together of songs like this. So, that's how we started and bit by bit the idea evolved and flourished into the CD we have now produced.
Julianne: This is the song that gave us the idea to carry on and make a whole album together. The plan was originally to have an album of duets, but that began to feel too contrived and limiting, so we then just chose songs we loved and didn't care whether they were duets or not, didn't care who did what; it was a case of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. We didn't have strict roles or 'quotas' of what songs we should do and how we should do them. So I guess this is the real duet of the album. It's a beautiful and very, very well written song.
9: Dangerous Eyes (New Song)
Wayne: One of the things we decided very early on was that we would both contribute a new song each. Julianne's is Dangerous Eyes, which was the last track to be completed and very nearly didn't make it on at all. I knew this was a good song from the first time I heard it. To me it sounds like it could quite easily be a James Bond film theme song. I always fancied myself as Bond... ‘Hi, my name is Bond, Wayne Bond.’ More like a Brooke Bond monkey... God, middle aged fantasies, eh? Anyway, I know Julianne struggled for a while with the chorus of this, to find something that felt right to her. Personally I liked her original lyric and melody but I understand how when something doesn't feel quite right that you can't let it go and you have to work it out. But I wouldn't let her scrap it, which is something she suggested a couple of times. I feel vindicated by the result, as this is as good a song as anything else on this album in my opinion.
Julianne: Yes, Wayne wouldn't let me give up on this one. It started to run away from me, I lost faith in it. It felt too long and rambling and it began to actually depress me. He gently pushed me to carry on with it. So I started to edit it, taking out the superfluous bits that didn't do much for the song other than confuse it and make it longer than it needed to be. That improved it massively for me. But then I found that the chorus, which should be the strongest part of a song, was the part I liked least. So I removed the vocal and started improvising something, and it's a rare occasion that I do vocally. The melody line that came out first was the one I kept, and even some of the words. So the chorus came right out of the depths of my subconscious so I wasn't going to question it. I sent it back to Wayne and he added his vocals and I got shivers up the back of my neck when I heard what he'd done. I am delighted with it, really so happy with it. And I had set out to write a Bond theme for a non-existent Bond film, so if Wayne is 007 then I must be a Bond Girl? If so, then I want to be Diana Rigg.
10: Calling Your Name (All About Eve)
Wayne: I had a three-hour bus journey into Sao Paulo one day so I loaded up my iPod with my All About Eve albums. I listened through and made a shortlist of about 10-12 songs that I felt we could cover for this album. Calling Your Name being one of them. When I was at home in the studio I started messing around with various songs either on the guitar or piano and this is the one that came easiest to me. So it kind of chose itself. Again, it's taking a song and going somewhere new and different with it, making it your own. Successfully so in this case, I think. Also I got my mandolin out for this one, which I hadn't played in years.
Julianne: Succinctly put, I'm blown away by what Wayne has done with this song. He has made it so much more multi-dimensional than the original. I will be very interested to hear what Tim Bricheno and Andy Cousin of All About Eve think of it!
11: Unravel (Bjork)
Wayne: I was a big fan of Bjork's first couple of solo albums but I kind of lost my way with her a bit until I met my wife who was, and is, a big fan. So I was re-introduced to Bjork and fell in love with her voice and her unorthodox approach to making music. Unravel came on in the car one day and, as with Another Lonely Day, my wife suggested that I could maybe do a good version of this. I messed around on the piano with this for a few days until I came up with something that I felt was a good way to go with it, took it into the studio and did it. Played ebow on an acoustic guitar on this, which actually sounds like some kind of ethnic stringed instrument. I did enjoy singing this one and I think you can hear evidence of that in the vocal. Julianne did her backing vocals on this without ever having heard Bjork's version.
Julianne: Yes, I'm glad I didn't listen to the original version before I sang this. Bjork, alongside people like Kate Bush, is very much 'the singer's singer' and so I didn't want to be overly influenced and intimidated. It's a gorgeous song, the lyrics are so simple and so true and so genuinely romantic.
12: A Change In The Weather – Aporia Mix (New Song)
Wayne: Three or four years ago I started recording with an Italian band called Votiva Lux who I really liked. We recorded this song together and were planning on doing an album and then they split up! So this song sat around doing nothing for a long time and when it came for me to do my new song for the album I remembered this and asked the Votiva boys if they'd mind if I finished it and included it on this album. The original version is a full on rock band version, which I didn't think sat very well with the rest of the material on this album. So I took some guitar parts, a bass part, and a few other elements from the original, Julianne added some vocals, and I did this remix which works a lot better in this context.
Julianne: Love this song, and I'm happy to have just a small bit-part role in it. Again, less can be more.