Chords for Billy Childs - The Making of Map to the Treasure: Reimagining Laura Nyro

[C] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ My sister Kirsten [Cm] introduced me to Laura [Gm] Nero, and [C] the thing that attracted me about it was _
[Cm] the [Gm] kind of alternate [C] reality world that she creates [Cm] with her words and with [Gm] her sounds.
[Cm] It became kind of part of the fabric of how I [Gm]
compose music, how I [Am] conceive of music.
_ _ [Ab] Billy, when I first met him, _ had, I believe that he introduced me to the [Cm] music of Laura Nero.
We were good friends, and during that time, I think he introduced me to Laura [C] Nero's music, [Eb] and [F] [C] I loved it.
I can't even describe [Cm] it, you know.
[C] She just _ _ played to her own drum,
and there were things that happened within songs that didn't make sense but were amazing.
[Cm] Most singer-songwriters [F] set up a sort of [C] tempo [B] and a beat,
and [C] they adhere to that particular piece of the school of popular [Em] songwriting.
She absolutely doesn't do that, but she [C] also writes these things that are completely _ _ internal
and have an [Eb] improvisatory feeling to [F] them.
_ [C] _ When Billy called with the idea [Cm] of collaborating on this, [Fm] I thought it was a fantastic [Cm] idea
because it was a long time coming [G] for us to come back [Cm] together and make a record together.
In an aesthetic sense, we [Gm] sort of [Am] had grown to inhabit _ [Ab] opposite sides of a continuum musically,
in [G] that, as Billy put it, he was a [Cm] maximalist and I was a minimalist.
[C] I think her [Gm] music [C] actually inhabits [Cm] both worlds, the maximal world and the minimal world.
I mean, you listen to a track like [F] New York Tenderberry,
and it's a very intimate, almost like love letter to New York.
_ _ _ [C] _ _ [F] _
[Eb] _ _ _ [Gm] _ _ _ _ _
New [Am] York [A] Tenderberry _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [C] _ Rush [G] on [C] rum of brush and drum _
And the past _ _ [F] is a blue _ _ note
A [D] piece like [Dm] Gibson Street, which [Gb] starts [Dm] with solo piano,
and all of a sudden you have these blazing horns and drum sets [Db] and [Bm] electric guitars,
[Db] and it's very [Abm] [E] densely [Dbm] orchestrated.
[Gbm] And _ [Ab] _ to me, those [Bm] _ contrasts [Gbm] are really [E] interesting in that [Ab] they bring [G] _ _ this [Gb] theatrical [Bm] [Ab] element to her music
that [E] I find really [A] [D] heightens the drama [Ab] of what she's talking about.
The [Abm] alley [Gm] cats [Cm] on _ Gibson _ Street
_ _ [Ab] _ The _ _ alley [Eb] _ [Gm] cats [Cm] on Gibson _ [Eb] _
[E] Street
[Abm] _ [Ebm] On Gibson, _ [Ab] Gibson _ Street _ _ _ _
When [Am] Billy called me and asked me if I [C] wanted to [G] be a part of this project,
I was really [F] excited [Em] to [D] finally get to [Am] know her music and also to get to know her through the lens of [F] Billy.
Would you love [C] to love me, [G] baby?
I would [Am] love to [Em] love you, [Am] baby
_ Now, if in all _ _ _ [Fm] _ _ [Bbm] _
my pain
[Am] There _ isn't really a reason to do a record like [G] this [Dm] unless _ one can [G] reinvent the song [D] in a way
that [G] takes it far enough away from the original version [F] that the composer [A]
and [G] writer
[D] to have people see [G] the [Am] thing in [D] a completely [C] new way,
so that they hear the lyric in a new sense,
and so that they [F] find some different [Am] things inside the song
[Dm] they might not hear [G] on [Dm] the iconic version.
A lot of what she's talking about [Am] is not [Em] straight forward [G] like,
this is [Gbm] this and [Em] that's that, this guy did this to [A] me, that girl did that [Dm] to me.
It's [F] more _ _
_ [Em] symbolic and very [F] poetic and [C]
[D] allegoric.
I think it's great for [C] young artists [Gbm] or older artists like myself [Bm] to be exposed to music [A]
from the greats.
[Gbm] So I think anytime [Dbm] that people [Bm] get to hear the [A] classic music,
whether it's [Abm] reinterpreted or in its original form, it's [Gbm] fantastic.
It [A] was really going to be [Bm] hard for [Gbm] me to conceive of [G] an album
[Bm] with a singer that covered all [A] of the different [Am] areas that Laura did. _ _ _
[Em] Take my hand, _ _ [D] take my [G] hand
_ [F] _ _ [Dm] _ _ _ In the treasure [G] of my heart
And then when it came to selecting which artists would be the [Em] vocalists on each song,
the same [Dm] thing would happen.
[C] We would [G] kind of sit and talk [Am] and say,
well, [B] what if we [G] had this person, _ they would bring this to the song,
or this person [Am] would be more of a [C] contrast to [F] [E] the overt [B] meaning of the lyric.
Their voice would have a [Em] different effect on _ [Dm] this lyric.
A lot of musicians, a lot of singers [F] loved Laura Neurall's music.
_ [Dm] Patti LaBelle loved [Am] her music, and she loved them.
[Gm] She loved [C] soul music, [F] and she was the whole package. _
It's not going to be a regurgitation of Laura [C] Neurall.
So it's going to be a reimagining.
I [Bb] guess that's the best way to put it.
[Am] I'm holding it _ [Gm] _ [F] _ _ in
Stone _ _ soul, stone soul
_ _ _ _ [Dm] She's a lion's