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Living for the City ![]() |
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Living for the City Written by Stevie Wonder Published by Black Bull Music Inc., Jobete Music Co. Inc.
Vocal – Tash Neal Rhythm Guitar (right) and Solos - Slash Drums - Michael Jerome Bass – Johnny Griparic Rhythm Guitar (left) and Solo – Tash Neal Keyboards - Teddy Andreadis Background vocals: Jenna Bell, Jessie Payo SLASH: “‘Living for the City’ is a Stevie Wonder song, and another song that I grew up with. There was a period in my childhood where Steve Wonder was definitely the background music, and he was all my Mom played. ‘Living for the City’ was one of my favorite songs, and it stuck with me. Lyrically, there’s some different things happening in that song, a story being told, and then towards the end of the song musically it breaks down and it goes into the sound of the city in New York and the main protagonist of the story gets arrested. It gave me this visual in my mind and it always stuck with me. The fun thing about doing this record, was that we could do whatever the fuck we wanted. Back in the 90s we did a version of Steve Wonder’s ‘Superstition,’ and I didn’t want to do that because that song has been covered to death. So, the idea of doing a Stevie Wonder song wasn’t like, ‘Oh, we have to do a Stevie Wonder song. I said, Well, let’s do another song that I liked.’ We truncated the arrangement a little bit, so it’s a little shorter than the original. We didn’t try and emulate the city sounds or make it sound like the original version. But Tash Neal, who sings and plays guitar on the whole record, and the forthcoming tour, did a fucking fantastic job singing this song. So yeah, I’m really happy with it. It’s definitely something, and if ‘Papa was a Rolling Stone’ was unexpected, this song will be even more so.†|