Agatha Christie
Lives in my building, up on the 13th floor
Winner winner chicken dinner, meet Agatha Christie! It was actually a tie between this and Sunlight, but I cast the decisive vote in Agatha Christie’s favor because I’m excited about it.
I got the start for the music, the melody, way back in 2005. I was chasing hits to the exclusion of everything else and my confidence was tanking, but thankfully, this one came through. When I started to wrap words around it, Agatha Christie was the first phrase that popped out of my mouth. It was the right length of syllables, but I had no idea what to do with it. I backed into a place holder lyric I figured was gibberish, “seems like I’m always doing a rain dance.”
I couldn’t crack it so I shoved it into a folder of ideas with the intention of circling back but, somehow, that didn’t happen until 2020, when I dusted it off going through ideas for a new record. I could see how the rain dance part had been a wish for the muse to return.
For whatever reason, the name Agatha Christie suggested NYC to me, specifically Gramercy Park, where I’d lived briefly in 2001-2002. At the time, every male singer songwriter was living in the very long shadow of John Mayer. There was great pressure to be the next him, but I didn’t do what he did. To be clear, I didn’t even know what I did yet, but that didn’t stop me from wanting what he had. The comparison, the raw jealousy, ate me up for a good, long while. It took going through cancer to really figure it out what I had to say as a songwriter.
I wish I’d known at the time that being stuck in his shadow was right where I belonged, that it would end up becoming a song I love as much as this one It would have helped immeasurably to know I’d feel like I was reaching my potential one day. As it is, I’m grateful that in 2020, Agatha Christie became a stand in for John Mayer - the prolific writer and success story living in the same building as a blocked up writer neighbor she doesn’t know exists.
I’m a huge fan of Sting’s early solo work; Nothing Like the Sun in particular hit me right between the eyes, so when I started demoing Agatha Christie, it brought to mind Englishman in New York, Sting’s tribute to the legendary Quentin Crsip.
That song was the first time I remember noticing pizzicato strings and orchestral elements folded into a pop song. The arrangement had such sophistication and refinement; it was unlike anything I’d ever heard and I wanted to see if I could pull off something similar with this one as an homage to one of my heroes.
I worked out the piano part and mocked everything up at my studio and then in January of 2024, I got the basics tracked at Matter Music in LA with Justin Stanley engineering. Over the last year and a half, I lined up remote sessions with some amazing musicians to breathe life into the demo. Below are some clips from the 2024 session.
MJ on the mallets
Jon Flaugher on the upright.
Immy in session
That’s Michael Jerome playing congas and mallets to perfection, Phil Krohnengold for the win on the piano and accordion, Jon Flaugher on the upright bass, and David Immerglück on the electric guitar. The soprano sax is a direct nod to Branford Marsalis’s work on Englishman in New York courtesy of Sylvain Carton, and the strings are from my demo. The mix is Ryan Lipman’s, and Hans DeKline was the mastering engineer.
I’m really proud of this one and very excited to soon have it out in the world. It feels, at least to me, like it has some of the same magic that was sprinkled over Englishman in New York. And I love the idea of a Manhattan where Agatha Christie and Quentin Crisp might bump into one another.
The track’s below, I’ll leave it up for a few days and would love to know what you think.
Thank you for voting!
✌️❤️⚡️🤬
Coby
AGATHA CHRISTIE
