My Newest Recording – (By the Banks of Old) Swan Creek
August 31st, 2012 . by Alexander Fisher
I never meant to watch the AMC series “Breaking Bad”. But my wife Jill kept telling me that I would like it. When I did start watching it, I would sit and view the episodes, playing my guitar. While watching it, I began playing the main chords that later became (By the Banks of Old) Swan Creek. I began hearing the lyrics in my head and started writing the song watching Walter and Jesse cook meth.
I am not sure I knew what the song would be initially. But sometime around then I also contacted Tammy Parshall Daily (now Balas) on Facebook. She was previously married to my friend Ernie Daily, who I had known since childhood. Ernie had passed away about ten years ago and Tammy and I somehow have lived in several areas at the same or different times. Even the same house once in my hometown of London, Ohio (at different times). Tammy is in Swanton now. A place where I lived for six years.
After talking to Tammy online, I got to thinking about Swanton, and Ada. Ada, east of Lima, Ohio in Hardin County, is a place I lived for ten years, and was Tammy’s hometown. I moved to Swanton from there. Swanton was close enough to Toledo that it felt like a suburb. There was only the airport separating the two areas. Jill worked in Toledo and I did too. I have a lot of good memories from living there. I know that there are some things about moving back to central Ohio that made it worth it. But in some ways, still I regret moving from Swanton. Or even moving away from Ada to begin with. The flow of my life just took me away from those places. Sometimes due to events beyond my control. But sometimes I had full control of it, for better or worse.
When I hear this song, I think of Ada, Swanton, Ernie and Tammy, ATI, Sprint, Loma Linda’s, Tony Packo’s, etc. I am also waiting for that e-mail from Tammy telling me she lives in Galloway some day. Or maybe I’ll move back to Swanton, by the banks of the old Swan Creek.
I played my Takamine acoustic guitar. One track is finger picked and the other I used a Fender medium pick. I used D’Addario EJ-15 ultra light strings on the Takamine. I played my Fender Stratocaster electric guitar and my Rickenbacker 4001 bass. The drums are patches from Session Drummer 3. I did MIDI programming and editing of the patches. I played Tambourine and added clips from my Ludwig drums. The piano is my Roland MIDI slave and True Piano. I used my Shure SM-58 microphone for most vocals. But I did use my Shure SM-27 for some.
