Singled Out: West of Rome's Movement in Your Picture

West of Rome just released their new single "Movement in Your Picture," from their forthcoming album "Keep It Fly In The Negative Zone" and to celebrate we asked Kevin Higginbotham and Charlie Roadman to tell us about the song. Here is the story:

Kevin: "Movement in Your Picture" is the first single from our new album, "Keep it Fly in the Negative Zone." This was a fun song to write. The melody and chorus came to me in a dream, which was inspired by an envelope of old pictures (and other crumbs) discovered in a novel never read yet hogging space on my bookshelf. How many years can Dostoevsky sit before one gives up the ghost of actually reading the book? Ah, but when it hides pictures of lost friends and lost love, perhaps its real estate is well-spent.

It's a rock and roll song, so the lyrics aren't trying to do much work
(like its author). But I like the idea of a real image (the picture)
supplanting a false image formed in one's mind and shining a little
light. A blast from the past? Perhaps, more? The song was a blast to record. We cut it live, and it was the first track we hit after deciding to the do the record. I know I finished some of the lyrics in the booth and was happy with how it came together.

Charlie: As Kevin said, "Movement in Your Picture" was the first song we recorded as a band. We went into Ramble Creek Studio in Austin for a weekend with plans to knock out just two songs-"Movement" and "Haunt Me." After we finished the first day's session and left for the night, our engineer, Britton Beisenherz, added piano and some percussion to the tracks. Getting extra tracks added to your songs while you sleep is the best gift. For the guitar solo, I recorded it a few different ways to get that buzzy, energetic feel. I really didn't want the track to lose momentum, and it sets up the more mellow third verse. The slide part on the main riff was recorded using an old Epiphone guitar Britton had lying around the studio. I was pushing the headstock to drop the pitch, and Britton couldn't see what I was doing from the mixing room. At one point, he asked how I was bending the pitch, and when I told him, he firmly told me to be careful with his guitar. I reassured him, but later I bought the same guitar so I could bend the hell out of the neck without worrying about it.

Kevin wrote the song, and, like he said, the lyrics came to him in a dream. They play with the idea of a snapshot, as a Polaroid or a memory. Both are things that fade over time. And, in true Kevin fashion, there's that Dostoevsky reference in there. He only gave us one piece of musical direction-he wanted the groove to feel like the Velvet Underground. I'm not sure how much of the VU groove remains, though. My favorite thing about this song is that it convinced us to keep working on a full album.

Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen and watch for yourself below and learn more here

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