Gold and Silver is a mysterious, ethereal-sounding song featuring simply Mary and her guitar, but with an added atmospheric twist by her son Morgan Visconti's production.
Shortly after Mary wrote the song, David Lynch approached Mary to ask if she'd like to contribute a track in aid of the David Lynch Foundation to promote the teaching of Transcendental Meditation in schools worldwide. Such a meditative song fitted perfectly, and David was delighted with it.
To help promote the song and cause, Mary came up with the concept for the video and we shot it at Space Studios in Cardiff with Sharkbiscuit.
Slowly fading from silver to gold, and focusing intently on Mary's face, it allows us to concentrate on the lyrics. "If you listen carefully to the lyrics," Mary told us, "the meaning of the song is pretty self-explanatory!" Some viewers have wondered about the change in colour. "Yes, I'll have to re-record the song as 'Silver and Gold' to match the video!"
Regarding the production side, Morgan kindly gave us his views:
"Mary (Mum) recorded the basic guitar and vocal in about 10 minutes during the sessions [in New York] which later became You Look Familiar.
"It clearly stood out as a song that was so pure that it worked better without any production around it - the other songs being quite dense. Later we decided to hold it back from the album for that reason.
"I thought it needed something textural, another layer but didn't want to contrive anything, like putting a pad on it for instance. So I tried to use only the raw material, i.e. Mary's beautiful voice, and have the lyrics drastically delayed and then delayed again so they became sort of a 'round'. I'd heard the technique used in movies, where somebody's inner voice is pinging around in their head, and I think it sounds lovely and trippy on this song."
Now we are glad to feature this gem on Painting by Numbers.
Follow Us