(antiMusic) Welcome to Singled Out! where we ask artists to tell us the inside story of their latest single. Today Steve Conte of the New York Dolls tells us about the song "Gypsy Cab," from his new solo album Steve Conte & The Crazy Truth. We now turn it over to Steve for the story!The music for "Gypsy Cab" from the album Steve Conte & The Crazy Truth was written in my sleep on a flight to Japan w/ New York Dolls. I was sitting across from Sylvain and I told him that I had just dreamed a great riff for a new song. I had no recording device so I used my own musical hieroglyphs & wrote it down on an airplane vomit bag. A year later when I was writing for my album I found the vomit bag in a pile of papers and finished the song.
At first I was singing a Chuck Berry lyric along with the song's main riff ("Sweet little rock and roller...") and considered making it about a young girl that was in love with Arthur Kane - but then I decided to keep it about myself. Like they say, "write what you know". It's about my former life...being out in the streets till the sun came up. I used to get off on the risk & danger of being places I shouldn't be, doing things I shouldn't be doing. It was like playing Russian roulette. The thing is, in this song I didn't want to glorify addictions the way some cats do, romancing memories of the good old days with their drug of choice. I wanted to talk about the insanity of it, admitting it, getting through it and being able to have a real life after. I'm not necessarily Mr. Clean now, but I'm much better than I was.
I'll be making a video for it next month...on location...like the songs says, "Way up in Harlem...."
The album hits stores in the UK this week, just in time for the kick off of the New York Dolls tour! You can preview Steve's new album and learn more about it, plus the tour plans - right here!
