Album Notes

“Joy of Life” (lyrics and music by James Harrell)

The lyrics for “Joy of Life” were inspired by our friend’s son who was two years old at the time. We came home from a dinner party at their house and I was amazed at the energy and persistence of this child. The first verse is literally a lyrical representation of the biophysics of conception. Seeing that all of us who walk this planet were the “fastest swimmers”, I wanted to interpret that this is a reason why we are all here. The rest of the story follows the path and direction on which we live our lives. When we started playing this song for people, we noticed an immediate connection. It exuded total positivity and because of its lyrical content, created a platform for everyone to participate in. When I was first working on this song, I got stuck at the chorus. I played it for Ilyana and asked her if she had any ideas. She told me that Amir’s(our godchild) first word was “O.K”. After that, it flowed. We sang it as a duet and I finally took my shot at lead vocals. I think that was another aspect of this song that people enjoyed. No one had ever heard me sing, so it was a different perspective of our music. We teamed up with our friend Danny Madorsky, to record this song. Danny had produced and engineered “Hussy” on our first album, and expressed interest in working on this song. We started in our studio with drum programming, and then travelled up to his studio to start tracking everything else. After hours of recording, I would leave the room so he and Ilyana could record vocals, and would help his wife Addy shuck oysters and make Thai spring rolls while we waited for dinner to be ready. The end of the recording process would always end up at the dining room table with a decadent meal sitting before us. After many extended weekend stays at their place, along with many broken wine glasses, “Joy of Life” was completed.

James- Vocals, all instruments, drum programming
Ilyana- Vocals, Backing Vocals
Danny- Producer, engineer, mix, drum programming