Strap in for a straight-up two-minute twenty rocker from Chicago’s Joe McGuire on his new track “Gentleman of the Bedchamber.” It’s a thing of beauty to hear songwriters putting this kind of raw energy with a catchy melodic sensibility into songs these days. Too often bands will lean into one side or the other and forget about the balance it takes to create something that hits hard and resonates in your mind all day when its short few minutes are over. The live energy brought to this recording is palpable. You can almost smell the stale beer and whiskey of a grimy inner-city dive bar through the production.
“I wanted to write a real rocker that captures proud, somewhat moronic, and hopefully harmless revelry. Like, how great is a tailgate with the right group? How awesome is it to blast music from your car in your driveway during a party? I wanted to capture that bliss that occurs when a party intersects right on a quality of company and a quantity of beer,” says McGuire.
“I saw the phrase “gentleman of the bedchamber” when I was reading Anna Karenina and thought was funny so I wrote it down for future use. Then, when I was in Ireland earlier this year i noticed every guy has that peaky blinders fade and they maintain these fades like they’re in the army. “Fade” in the USA can mean drunkeness or beating someone up, and so at some point with all of this in my head, I wrote the chorus “I keep my fade going just like a gentleman.” So, I suppose the song has layers of meaning but, again, who cares? I just wanted it to rock!”
