Your Star Will Shine

Your star will shine again one day
Through deep blue velvet skies
Shine for all the world to see
The universe in your eyes

When the storm outside is raging
And the dogs they howl your name
Lay down to sleep, I'll kiss you
Your star will shine again

Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah nah
Hush my darling don't you cry
I'll stay by your side until morning
All through the night I'll watch the skies

And your distant sun
Will shine like the gun
That's trained right between your daddy's eyes

Lyrics by:
Squire

Music by:
Squire

Written:
1993

Personnel:
John Squire (guitar)
Ian Brown (vocals)
Alan Wren (percussion, backing vocals)
? (claps)

Producer:
Simon Dawson

Engineer:
Simon Dawson

Available on:
Love Spreads single (as b-side)
Second Coming (2.59)

First live performance:
Oslo Rockefeller Music Hall (19 April 1995)

Details:
Your Star Will Shine, the only song on Second Coming to clock in at under three minutes, was written at Rockfield by John and recorded very quickly:

"This was written at Rockfield, by John. He demo'ed it in his bathroom with his Portastudio, so the acoustic had this very bright sound to it which we really liked. We tried to recreate that in the live room at Rockfield, using Nashville tuning on his acoustic, which sounds very bright, and added some chorus from a TC Electronic effects unit. This was one of the ones we used a sample to keep in time on. The clap noise is a real clap - three guys clapping, heavily EQ'd. We sampled them into the TC and then triggered the best one so it's smack in time, just to create a bit of percussion. There's also a floor tom, which is supposed to sound like one of those Irish drums, a bodhran.

"At first, we were just going to use the version we recorded as a proper demo. Reni wanted to play percussion at the same time as John was playing guitar, so we put him in the corridor. They came in and listened to it, and really liked it. I thought, 'we can't go with that', as it speeds up a little at the end of the intro. But they decided to go with that version, and we finished it really quickly, in three or four days."
(Simon Dawson speaking to Sound On Sound magazine, May 1995)

The backwards guitar is reminiscent of The Beatles' 'I'm Only Sleeping'. In this exclusive TITD interview with Simon Dawson, I asked him how he achieved the backwards guitars that run parallel to the acoustic guitar on this track (Q24). He stated that they "turned the tape upside-down and John learned the song backwards". This same method was used on the aforementioned Beatles track, on which George Harrison worked out his Indian style line in normal sequence, then had George Martin transcribe it in reverse and recorded it thus (see Ian MacDonald's notes for the song from his book, 'Revolution In The Head').

The unsettling closing lines express John's worry that he will not be around to see his daughter* grow up:

Will shine like the gun
That's trained right between your daddy's eyes

Thematically the song echoes John Lennon's 'Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)', written to his son, Sean.

Close your eyes
Have no fear
The monster's gone
He's on the run and your daddy's here

John Lennon, Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy) (1980)

There is a Biblical aspect to Your Star Will Shine. One can infer from the opening line ("Your star will shine again one day") that the direction of this statement is not primarily towards Squire's daughter. Why would the star of a daughter, of only a couple of years old, have gone away or at least not be shining ? The reference to 'star' in Squire's lyric could be referring to Jesus's star that led the wise men to Him. From Matthew's Gospel, 'The Visit of the Magi':

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews ? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him."
(Matthew 2: 1 - 2)

After finding Jesus, they no longer see the star, judging from the fact that no further mention of it is made in the Bible. This is the point at which Jesus's star stopped shining (or at least was no longer in the view of the wise men), having fulfilled its purpose. Squire's lyric saying that the star will shine again can surely only be referencing the Second Coming of Christ:

Look, he is coming with the clouds,
and every eye will see him,
even those who pierced him;
and all the peoples of the earth
will mourn because of him.
So shall it be ! Amen.
(Revelation 1: 7)

The rehearsal sessions, available to hear on the 'In The Studio' CD, of this song expose Ian's vocal capabilities. He has trouble keeping time with John, especially on Tracks 3 and 9. John, perhaps justifiably, becomes annoyed with Ian's timing on Track 10 - "It just sounds like you've forgotten everything, everything we did before tea". Ian finally gets his timing right on Track 11. Incidentally, listen out for some rare singing by John on Track 6 ('Losing the melody') and Track 8 ('From 2nd verse').

* John Squire's daughter, Jamie was the inspiration for his 1989 artistic work, 'Our Dreams (Collaboration With Jamie)'.

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