The Somnambulist

(Partridge)

Recordings
Art
Lyrics
Chords and Tablature
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Recordings

  1. Single version, 4'37.
    Recorded at Olympic Studios, BBC, Barnes, London, engineered by Laurence Burrage.
    Vocal recorded at Regents Park Recording Company, London, by John Leckie and Alan Jakoby.
    Produced by Andy Partridge.
    Released in March 1980 as a B-side to the Ten Feet Tall single in the U.S.A.
    Also available as a bonus track on compact disc releases of Black Sea.
    Aware: “A song based on a poem about a sleepwalker by Clodagh Simmons, was recorded in a BBC studio, perhaps at the time of the John Peel session (October 8, 1979) that produced re-recordings from Drums and Wires . . .”
    Laurence Burrage: “The song was recorded at Olympic Studios in Barnes, London, in Studio 2, where I was a house engineer at the time. The session was a re-recording of one of the Black Sea singles (possibly ‘Sgt Rock’) for TV to satisfy the musician's union rules in force at that time. What normally happened was that we would swap the tapes for a copy of the track's master stereo mix at some point whilst the TV or union guys were out of the room. Occasionally we would re-mix the original multitrack into a mono mix just for TV, and once or twice I did re-record the whole thing. Anyway, that evening the tapes were successfully swapped early, but as we had some time booked Andy decided he would like to use it. The song was built up from a bass drum tape loop piece by piece over the next couple of hours; I think I can recall Andy writing the lyrics as we went along. We certainly worked on them, making some changes. Mixing took less than an hour and we were on our way home by midnight. I did a few more sessions with the band in a similar vein for a couple of years but sadly never got to do anything more substantive.”
  2. 2017 5.1 mix.
    Upmixed to 5.1 by Steven Wilson using the Penteo Surround System.
    Released on the reissue of Black Sea on 17 November 2017 in the U.K.

Art

[THIS SPACE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK]


Lyrics

Untie the gown, float to the ground
She revolve round, making no sound
Air leaving slow
Still breathing though

Decaying through brown, diving she's bound
Hours swum down, treasure unfound
Air leaving slow
Still breathing though

Somnambulist
Somnambulist
Somnambulist
Somnambulist
Air leaving slow
Still breathing though.

Chords and Tablature

Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2005 17:09:52 +0100
From: Jordi Ibáñez Llauradó <lohagoporelmessenger (at) hotmail dot com>
Subject: xtc songs
Message-ID: <BAY113-F11D978375E7EAC7A754B66DA390 (at) phx dot gbl>


OK, my first posting. please be gentle. i just want to say that
that's been done with no keyboard or organ at hand, so i can't
be more precise about the chords. that's why here you'll only
find the basic chords: it's up to you, people that can write,
read and dissect chords, to finish this work. so here it goes,
all the songs in the XTC catalogue that hadn't been tabbed in
this great site, from "black sea" to "nonsuch". you won't find
anything from "mummer" because the whole album has already been
"chorded" in this site.

don't expect any riffs or arpeggios, BTW. that's as far as my
skills go...

maybe i should be ashamed to post something like this (so
incomplete, wrong and childish) but it's just for the sake of
people who just want to strum XTC songs and sing and don't care
much if this is a sus4, added or other bollocks chord (and i must
point that i am one of those who really care, so i'm willing to
read all kinds of comments and corrections). please, john relph,
erase every transcription of mine as soon as a proper tab of each
song made by any other XTC fan who's more trained on guitar than me
comes to your mail.

songs like "the somnambulist" or "seagulls..." were meant to be
played on keyboards and sound terrible on guitar. beware!


THE SOMNAMBULIST
whole song: C-Bb

--
hope that will be useful for somebody.
merry Xmas!
feedback welcome at jordiibanez (at) mixmail dot com
                 or lohagoporelmessenger (at) hotmail dot com

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