Black Madonna

https://Modulor.lnk.to/blackmadonna
'Black Madonna' was originally written for Mosiacs (with Chloé Lebaye, Chloé LeCarpentier, Jerome Copentipy & Manolo Freitas), a band that started and unfortunately never saw the light of day in the COVID period. The original version was very rock and roll and whilst this worked perfectly for Mosiacs it just didn't seem right for The Living Paintings. We rehearsed the song for 2 days but we just couldn't make it work. After a sleepless night thinking about the song I got up and played around with completely different chords and melody. Within 30 minutes everybody was behind their instruments and we we're recording a new version of the song. The first take sounded great so we left it there and decided that song needed to be spontaneous so we'd try just one more take the next morning. We woke early the next morning and recorded before we'd finished our first coffee. This is the take we kept for the album.

It was the first song recorded for Waiting For The Piano To Fall and I remember Sam and I crying with relief and happiness that we'd finally got a song down for the album after 3 days of recording.

The song is influenced by a true story from the book, 'Detroit 67: The Year That Changed Soul' by Stuart Cosgrove, in which a priest employs a ex offender to paint a Black Madonna to inspire his herd in a year of Vietnam protests, social unrest, rising crime, growing social awareness, riots, violence, police corruption and the Black Rights movements.