Friends, Lovers or Nothing

Every guitar has a unique harmonic fingerprint, and it plays a recognition factor in any given song. Also, playing the same guitar is sort of like bringing the studio out on the road. For example, I’m playing a 1961 Les Paul SG on “Friends, Lovers or Nothing.” There’s not really any other guitar that’s gonna deliver that sound.

My favorite guitar right now is this Les Paul SG - you know what I'm talking about?

MT: The '61?

JM: Yeah, '61 something like that, such a cool guitar.

MT: That's a very different vibe for you, compared with the usual Strats?

JM: Yeah, like I said, I've sort of pulled out of the muscular, kinda' atom bomb guitar playing. It's more fun for me now to… like the lead line in "Friends Lovers or Nothing" - I take more pride in having composed that than in having recited an Albert King thing on top of another composition.

[Sings the melody]. It's really a sweet, sweet melody, it's almost kinda corny, and I really enjoyed double-tracking it for that sort of Harrison-esque tone.

If there's ever one lyric that I myself think about, more than any other one that I've written, it's "anything other than yes is no," when it comes to relationships. We know how to say yes. The "maybe"s, the "or"s, the "hey but"s — those are just synonyms for no. And I think about it even in my own life, still. Anything other than yes is no.