Whenever I’m With You

WHENEVER I’M WITH YOU [Outtake from the Rise and Shine album]

Music Ed Hale and Jorge Gera. Lyrics Ed Hale. Guitar and vocals: Ed Hale. Lead guitar: Duane Allen. Piano and keyboards: Jorge Gera and Joe Trainer. Drums: Ricardo Mazzi. Bass guitar: Stro. Trumpet: Jack Johnson. Recorded at Sunflower Recording Studios, Hollywood, FL 2000. Produced by Ed Hale, Stro Stroman, Cliff Rawnsley. Engineered by Cliff Rawnsley. Mixed by Gary Bosko at HeartForge.

A song already familiar to many due to its use in numerous films and television shows over the years, Whenever I’m with you was never officially released by TRANSCENDENCE. Originally recorded for the bandâ€™s debut album Rise and Shine, the song was cut off the album at the last minute because the band had recorded too many songs for the album and needed to slice off about twenty minutes of recorded material. Whenever I’m with you was an obvious choice because as much as the band loved the way the song came out, it clearly didn’t fit in with the overall vibe of the rest of the album. Although it is easy to hear the song was recorded by the same group of musicians during the same sessions due to the similarity of the instrumentation, the song was a far throw from the multi-cultural â€œsave the world with musicâ€ sound of Rise and Shine. It sounding more R&B than anything else on the record. Fans are often surprised when they hear the song for the first time because of just that reason. It is completely anomalous to anything Transcendence has ever recorded and yet somehow still works; this might help explain why the song still gets picked up for film and TV licensing even though it has never formally been released to the public.

In the early days Transcendence was a large group of local musicians and singers we initially dubbed Ed Hale & the Troubadours of Transcendence. This is true, and yes perhaps just a wee bit embarrassing. During some rehearsals we had up to 12 musicians in the room jamming on the songs. At some point the idea just felt too big to control. So the group just fell apart. A few months later I got a call from our sax player Jorge Gera who told me that he found the most amazing drummer who was originally from Bolivia and who totally was into World Music. He also told me he had switched to playing the bass. We jammed together as a 3 piece and everything just worked. When we first entered the studio to record what would eventually become Rise and Shine we came in as that 3 piece. Jorge could play just about any instrument he wanted to and he was a prolific and talented songwriter. He used to shoot out chord progressions like crazy and I added lyrics and melody on top of them. Unfortunately Jorge found a girl, moved out of town, and we were down to just two, our drummer Ricky and me. We kept on tracking the album anyway and eventually, one by one, the rest of the guys joined the group. Whenever I’m with you was one of those songs that Jorge was just fucking around with one night when we were hanging around the studio drinking and recording. He brushed it off as he always did but as soon as I heard the progression I felt an immediate and intense compulsion to form it into a song. I just thought it was brilliant. Very real. Very sexy and emotional. There was extreme passion in the progression and I felt it totally epitomized where I was at personally.

My girl and I at the time were really living the artistâ€™s lifestyle, day to day, hand to mouth. We were banking everything on this album so the lyrics just poured out of me. I never even gave them a second thought. Never looked back at them, never reworked them. I just let what I was feeling in that moment pour out lyrically. The song is as true as you can get. What it really was was a love note in that moment to myself and the love of my life. I was also very excited about the R&B nature of the song, not being something that I normally wrote, sang, or recorded, but something that I really wanted to. In the studio I had to really chide and push Karen (Feldner, the bandâ€™s longtime background vocalist for all five of our albums) to â€œgo thereâ€ with me in the vocal booth and get sexy when we were tracking our background vocals together. Karen and I always track our high-end background vocals together at the same time on the same mic. This is just how we do it. We have known each other and been singing together since college. We have a real brother and sister simpatico so she has always been very cool and open — if not shocked and sometimes even horrified â€“ to trying whatever I dream up no matter how weird or uncomfortable it may be at first. â€œKaren we have to sing it like weâ€™re making love. You just have to go there. All the way. Like weâ€™re going to die tomorrow and this is our final hymnal before the entire planet blows up into a million pieces and we turn into ashes and dust.â€ After a few takes we were off in some other universe basically making virtual love into those microphones.

The song actually ended up being released long before the Rise and Shine CD when we found out that MTV had picked it up to use on something called the Nick and Jessica show. Truth is we had no idea what the show was about or who these people were. (We would soon enough though) As fate would have it, in one of those rare and divine moments of providence the song made its debut when the show aired on valentines day, which made my girlfriend at the time very happy. It couldnâ€™t have worked out more perfectly. Since that time the song has been used countless times on television shows and a few movies but it never made its way onto any album. Until now.

Lyrics

Oh baby you drive me crazy

Wrap your loving legs around me

I want to give it to you

Oh mama, I want to be your papa

I want to make sweet love to you

I’m gonna get you girl

In the morning, I love to see you yawning

The sunlight sparkles on your face

And in the evening, when its time for sleeping

I’m so happy that I’m with you (to see your face}

I know I know I know I know baby