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City Woman

by Kyprios

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about

3 month song that took  2 hours to make initially...

     Ok, so here's the song first if you don't give a shit about the story...

bit.ly/gUD071

     Here's the story if you don't give a shit about the song right now (cause you should still help the kid out).  I've loved the song "Sweet City Woman" since I first heard it as a wee kypper in underoo's and a batman cape.  I had the fortune of meeting the Stampeders at the WCMA's in Calgary several years ago and watched them get honored there.  Rich Dodson wrote the original tune and has been of tremendous help in the last couple of months.  That song never left my subconscious, so 3 years ago I decided to flip the beat and had Rob The Viking help me.  I bought the CD, brought it to Rob (he already owned the record),  he sped up the song and we layered drums underneath the track which he filtered to create different segments of our song.   We listened to "Itsoweezee" from De La Soul's album Stakes Is High and thought that a bridge like theirs would be cool.  We chopped that record up quick and I wrote to the beat as soon as I got home.  I recorded it with Doug Naugler shortly thereafter. The initial idea was to never release it commercially and just have something new and fun to perform live.

 Here's a performance from 09 in Moscow, Idaho...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaiseWZ9grA

    All is good, song is fun live, people seem to like it but there was no way that I could afford clearing the sample and didn't really know how.  No problem.  I enter into the Peak Performance Project where a Canadian cover is a mandatory part of the competition and I think why not?  Here's one example of many that illustrate how fate and serendipity conspired to help me in that competition...

   I showed the band my version and they dug it.  I came up with a light hearted homage to Canadian songs at my showcase, where I pretended to dig through records until I found the perfect match and would eventually settle in to my version of "Sweet City Woman" for my cover (now known as "City Woman" for copyright reasons).  Good response to my version and the beautiful people at the Peak were quite complimentary.  Great.  No problem.  

    Serendipity and fate weren't nearly finished with me but I'll share one other instance of their collective efforts.  We were supposed to do a "grassroots campaign" for the Peak and I decided to bring it back to the days of demonstration, but kypper styles.
www.kyprios.com/videos/  We would "demonstrate" until the Peak relinquished and played my new song "Sweet City Woman" (that Tamara Stanners, Carmen Cruz and Laurie Logan said they loved at the showcase).  Cool, the song gets played via demonstration, challenge complete.  No problem.  James Sutton the music director hears the song, likes it and now...  We've got a problem
 
     Problem was clearing a huge sample from a well known Canadian group that achieved international success with this song.  I would need to get a Master Recording Sample License (for lifting the sample from the recording) and a Composition Sample License (from the publishers of the song).  My lawyer, Patrick Aldous, reached the publisher and quickly worked something out there...cool, Goulet. Then he tried for months to contact the owners of the original Master and then we hit the wall (the ownership of the original Master had changed hands a number of times since it was originally released). Patrick did yeoman's work but we needed a big burly saviour with a beard to take us home.
 
     The fabulous Saints fan Shawn Cole stepped in to put this bitch to bed for me.  Patrick had suggested re-recording the song as an alternative solution to sampling the original recording and that was sound advice.  We decided to re-track everything, removing the sample and alleviating the need to obtain a license for the use of the original Master.  We kept Rob The Viking's drums, brought in Ian Lamont to play banjitar, used lead vocals sung by Ryan Dahle and Shaun Verreault, had my brother Kevin play lead guitar, bass, and sing BG's and Shawn Cole implemented the rest of the percussion.  Shawn then mixed the new version amazingly and Joao Carval killed the mastering of it.  The song needed to be identified as something other than "Sweet City Woman" and "City Woman" was born.  I hope you like it, because I did it for you.
 
Here she is...
 
 
bit.ly/gUD071
 


3 month song that took  2 hours to make initially...

     Ok, so here's the song first if you don't give a shit about the story...

bit.ly/gUD071

     Here's the story if you don't give a shit about the song right now (cause you should still help the kid out).  I've loved the song "Sweet City Woman" since I first heard it as a wee kypper in underoo's and a batman cape.  I had the fortune of meeting the Stampeders at the WCMA's in Calgary several years ago and watched them get honored there.  Rich Dodson wrote the original tune and has been of tremendous help in the last couple of months.  That song never left my subconscious, so 3 years ago I decided to flip the beat and had Rob The Viking help me.  I bought the CD, brought it to Rob (he already owned the record),  he sped up the song and we layered drums underneath the track which he filtered to create different segments of our song.   We listened to "Itsoweezee" from De La Soul's album Stakes Is High and thought that a bridge like theirs would be cool.  We chopped that record up quick and I wrote to the beat as soon as I got home.  I recorded it with Doug Naugler shortly thereafter. The initial idea was to never release it commercially and just have something new and fun to perform live.

 Here's a performance from 09 in Moscow, Idaho...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaiseWZ9grA

    All is good, song is fun live, people seem to like it but there was no way that I could afford clearing the sample and didn't really know how.  No problem.  I enter into the Peak Performance Project where a Canadian cover is a mandatory part of the competition and I think why not?  Here's one example of many that illustrate how fate and serendipity conspired to help me in that competition...

   I showed the band my version and they dug it.  I came up with a light hearted homage to Canadian songs at my showcase, where I pretended to dig through records until I found the perfect match and would eventually settle in to my version of "Sweet City Woman" for my cover (now known as "City Woman" for copyright reasons).  Good response to my version and the beautiful people at the Peak were quite complimentary.  Great.  No problem.  

    Serendipity and fate weren't nearly finished with me but I'll share one other instance of their collective efforts.  We were supposed to do a "grassroots campaign" for the Peak and I decided to bring it back to the days of demonstration, but kypper styles.
www.kyprios.com/videos/  We would "demonstrate" until the Peak relinquished and played my new song "Sweet City Woman" (that Tamara Stanners, Carmen Cruz and Laurie Logan said they loved at the showcase).  Cool, the song gets played via demonstration, challenge complete.  No problem.  James Sutton the music director hears the song, likes it and now...  We've got a problem.

     Problem was clearing a huge sample from a well known Canadian group that achieved international success with this song.  I would need to clear the Master License (for lifting the sample from the original) and the Mechanical License (from the owners of the publishing).  My lawyer, Patrick Aldous, reached the owner of the Mechanical License and worked something out there...cool, Goulet.  He tried for months to contact the owners of the Master and then we hit the wall.  Patrick did yeoman's work but we needed a big burly saviour with a beard to take us home.

     The fabulous Saints fan Shawn Cole stepped in to put this bitch to bed for me.  Patrick had suggested remaking the song as an alternative solution and that was sound advice.  We decided to re-track everything, removing the sample and alleviating obtaining permission for the Master License.  We kept Rob The Viking's drums, brought in Ian Lamont to play banjitar, used lead vocals sung by Ryan Dahle and Shaun Verreault, had my brother Kevin play lead guitar, bass, and sing BG's and Sahwn Cole implemented the rest of the percussion.  Shawn then mixed the new version amazingly and Joao Carval killed the mastering of it.  The song needed to be identified as something other than "Sweet City Woman" and "City Woman" was born.  I hope you like it, because I did it for you.

Here she is...


bit.ly/gUD071

lyrics

City Woman


(Chorus)
So easy sweet city she's so easy (not at all overrated ), so easy my baby's she so easy (not at all overrated)

Sweet, sweet city woman
She can con concrete, steal a smile from the street
In the cold bring the heat man, the girl's so sweet like...
Sweet city woman
Take your breath when she speaks like an excellent physique
She's an echo of a beautiful beat she's so sweet


I'm a tell you 'bout a girl I know
In the next episode, she's the star of the show
Best part, she don't even know, she never needs to know
That she's center of attention man it's unbelievable to me
Usually beauty is 2-D
And not 3 dimensions I don't need to mention
A fleusy's a fleusy that's a different movie
She ain't the type to get caught up in gossip like "who's he"
Independent individual
Since 3 years old, knew her part stole the role
She's all heart, sweetest in the bowl, little sugar for the soul
Divine intervention, girl is inconceivable to see
Wisdom at a young age
She read me like the funnies, leaves the drama for the front page
City is a stage and it's citizens the audience
Sweetest in the plot, got the whole block applauding it

Chorus

She rolls an old motorbike
She's the gin and soda type
Making Monday morning feel like Friday night aight!?
Confident and polite, fuck you up in a fight
Cause her father showed his daughter how a soldier earns the stripes
People ask about her race, a complicated case
A quarter Puerto Rican, Nubian and white, Asian face
Classic like a brownstone, ask her where she found home
Inner City kid, around the way is where she comes from
She got style and flavour
Way she rocks her Rod Lavers know that God's gonna save her
Oh for God's sake though, face of an angel
Smiling like the devil turn hell into a heaven if she says so
And if ya gotta know
She's not about the paper, ain't got alot to fold
A preacher of the streets and a freak inside the sheets
With an attitude to add to the fact she so sweet like that...


Chorus

credits

released April 2, 2011
D. Coles, R. Hopper, R. Dodson

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Kyprios Vancouver, British Columbia

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