The Story Behind the Song – Ai! Yai! Yai! Ya!
What happens when you mix Yorkshire lasses with the Muppets? Ai! Yai! Yai! Ya!
If I had any hair left, I’d say this was about a bad hair day. Or sod’s law. But, really, it’s a diary entry in running a band – it’s a long way from the bottom when you wanna roque’n’roll.
As for the music, while this sounds like a homage to the White Stripes – which would be praise indeed – I wrote the guitar riff on my acoustic. Am just too doggam lazy to flick a switch and hit a power chord.
When I hear a rock band about to kick it up a notch, they got to drop a gear down to get the revs. This was my inspiration for that B-A-E-G move to A5 for the verse, where am giving it some Whole Lotta Rosie. That bit where Mal Young is jamming on one chord for, like, foreeeeveeeer. Nice.
The mid section was me imagining a circus acrobat’s act, Gonzo fired from a cannon straight into the passenger seat of a Key Lime Pie-coloured Cadillac driven by the revomatic Lena Headey. Lucky Gonzo. In the absence of that marquee I had to put in a little schau. Great fun to play, that bit.
My last nod was, por supeusto, to Morricone and that tune from il Bueno, il Bruto, il Cattivo. Not only does the printed lyric not resemble what am yelling, it’s a placeholder for any Anglo-Saxonism you care to insert when things feck up.
I hope Ai! Yai! Yai! Ya! is just as evocative for you as it is for me.
Just prove that you cannot make anything up anymore, nossir! Here’s something I just stumbled on in writing this post.
Ai! Yai! Yai! Ya! indeed.
