Welcome to Singled Out! where we ask artists to tell us the inside story of their latest single. Today The Dig's frontman David Baldwin tells us about "Two Sisters in Love" from their new album "Electric Toys". We now turn it over to David for the story: We first started writing "Two Sisters in Love" in Emile's mom's living room about a year ago. We went to her house in Westchester, NY because we needed a whole weekend to teach our drummer Jamie, who had just joined the band that day, all of our songs for a Bowery Ballroom show three days later. Occasionally we'd take a break from rehearsing our songs, and we'd all switch instruments and mess around with some new ideas. In doing this Jamie came up with the guitar riff that became the intro and recurs throughout the song. I already had the title and a rough idea of the verse melody, as well as the idea to base the lyrics on an old ballad, "The Two Sisters."
The ballad "The Two Sisters" has been around forever and the first version I heard was one I found on a CD collection of old traditional songs. The idea for the title "Two Sisters In Love" seemed like it probably came from having heard that song, so it felt natural to try and tell a similar story. In the version I heard, a girl kills her younger sister out of jealousy and ends up getting hanged as a punishment. We pretty much just took these ideas and twisted them around a little bit.
I had another song that started with the line "she opened up her eyes and said…" but I thought it might be better for this song. With the opening line, the title and the idea to base the song off that ballad in mind, we spent the time in Emile's mom's living room working out the instrumental arrangements of the song.
From there we all came up with some different melodies and parts to go along with the verses. Emile came up with the melody that separates the two verses, as well as a riff that we play at the end. Erick had some melodies and guitar parts, and we continued to work at it for a few days before we arrived at the version that ended up on Electric Toys.
Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen for yourself and learn more about the album - right here!
Share this article on Twitter
