As you know by now, Daryl Braithwaite’s classic ‘The Horses’ is actually a song by Rickie Lee Jones but Rickie Lee Jones co-wrote with another legend, Walter Becker of Steely Dan.
“He was my producer of ‘Flying Cowboys’,” Rickie Lee Jones tells Noise11.com. “I had this song and I said to him ‘it feels like it’s just not going anywhere’. He listened and he said ‘what if you change the key in the chorus?’ I don’t know music but he said it was relative to the key and we could go here. So he changed the key and I didn’t like it very much but I wasn’t going to say no to him because I know he is a great writer so I said ‘okay lets do that’. And that’s what we did”.
The first time she ever met Daryl Braithwaite was on her last Australian tour in 2018. Daryl joined Rickie Lee on stage at Melbourne’s Recital Centre and they performed the song together for the first and only time. “It wasn’t great,” Rickie Lee say. “He is high in his register and he does it really good but I do it differently. We were kind of on the spot. We did okay but it wasn’t a great exchange. I’m sure he feels the same but its nice we showed up for each other”.
Rickie Lee Jones will perform in Australia in March and play two shows at Melbourne’s Northcote Theatre.
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