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The Royal Spa

from Vanilla | 77 by Vanilla

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about

The 70’s were known for genre-blending songs, and few groups could fuse rock and jazz like Steely Dan.

“The Royal Spa” was daunting work to begin with as the scale and complexity of the project and the famously high production standards of Mssrs. Fagen and Becker loomed before us.

The idea for the song struck Sean and I while waiting at a bar in Hollywood with our eldest kids (Nick and Hannah). Not coincidentally, we were there to see Steely Dan at the Hollywood Bowl.

I wrote the lyrics a few weeks later in the ICU while my daughter Sophie was suffering a serious brain trauma as an exercise in being someone else, even for a little while…

We worked out the structure of the song with our keyboardist (and secret weapon) Jim Peterson and the rest - well, it really takes a village to pull something like this off so please join me in the heart-felt acknowledgements below.

lyrics

On the cold, mean streets
In the sad retreats
I'm a vast all-seeing eye
Looking high and low
Where the players go
For a drink and an alibi

So I prowl the town
With my scepter and crown
I traipse across the street
I lay me down
On the sacred ground
In my favorite retreat

The Royal Spa
Is above the law
It's open 'til midnight
If it's open at all

The Royal Spa
For you and I
A happy ending
A lullaby...

Now the girls are here
And if you’ve had a beer
You might be in the pink
But hook or slice
It’s never nice
If it makes your ego shrink

Those holy rollers those Bel Aire posers
Are wearing their fancy pants
You don’t drop your card
When your avant-garde
You just get psycho with the sycophants

Now the sun is rising
I’m philosophizing
As the girls head out the door
The hills are misty
I have a whiskey
And I’m all alone once more

I punch the throttle with a brandy-bottle
And flash like a bowie-knife
Through Hollywood streets
And sad retreats
Of someone else’s life

credits

from Vanilla | 77, track released April 20, 2023
“Royal Spa” written by Jayson Jarmon (BMI), Sean Gaffney (BMI), and James Peterson (BMI). Lyrics by Jayson Jarmon. (C) 2022 for the Charlatan Record Cartel.

Sean Gaffney: lead vocal, 12-string electric guitar.
Jayson Jarmon: electric guitar, acoustic guitar
James Peterson: piano, Fender Rhodes piano, melodica
Mark Simmons: bass guitar
Scott Warfield: drums
Andy Omdahl: trumpet, flugelhorn, horn and backing vocal charts
Dave Broyles: solo guitar, guitar fills
Darelle Holden: backing vocals
Tina Hart: backing vocals
Kelly Ash: backing vocals

Recorded and mixed by Mark Simmons, Pacific Studios, Tacoma, WA, USA.

Cover designed by Ben Thompson (with a nod to Phil Hartman who designed the original Aja cover, no really… *that* Phil Hartman).
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Vanilla Tacoma, Washington

Melodic indie-pop band from the US Pacific Northwest. Featuring Jayson Jarmon (formerly of Liar's Club), Sean Gaffney, Mark Simmons, Scott Warfield, James Peterson and a cast of thousands!

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