slightly different take
on the album’s title track, a sinister heavy metal whack that stood out as a
forbearer of things to come. “Well, ‘Ready An’ Willing’, it’s a bit of a
mystery for everybody because it doesn’t have my name on it. And that’s because
we had a policy at the time of having one track on the album we would kind of
split between all members of the band. And then Ian Paice came into the
band, and Ian Paice, because of him being The Bank Of Paice – and him knowing
what it was like to sell millions of records because of Purple – when it came
time to do the credits, Paicey said, ‘Well, Bernie shouldn’t be on it.’ ‘Well,
he wrote most of the song.’ ‘Well, he wrote the last two songs, and nobody
wrote anything else, but it was divided between the band.’ And he said, ‘Oh,
no, no, if this album sells a million, that means I make £2000 less,’ because
he was very money-sorted, whereas the rest of us were just getting on the
road and playing rock ‘n’ roll. But that’s Ian all over. That’s why my name
doesn’t appear on it, even though I’m kind of a part of it.”
Coverdale, however, sided with Paice on
this one, saying that the track was being cooked up primarily by himself and
Moody, precisely because Marsden was still in Africa. One would surmise the
missing credit is a dig at the irksome situation. After all, this was indeed the
track designated by Coverdale to be the one on which the entire band gets
credited. The slight adjustment to that policy... well, Bernie was supposed to
be back from vacation and working.
“‘Sweet Talker’ was written just before
we went to the session,” continues Marsden. “I more or less had the
idea for the song, David wrote the words, and ‘Fool For Your Loving’ was a
classic Coverdale/Marsden/Moody. I kind of had the riff, and the
riff goes through the song to the bridge part. And Micky had a kind of really
cool piece to join them together, which is from another song of his. I said, ‘Well,
why don’t we put that in this?’ and it all made sense, and David wrote the
words. And it took about, I should think, maybe about an hour-and-a-half. ‘Love
Man’, I thought was a great modern blues at the time.
“David got a lot of stick for sexist
lyrics and I thought that was quite amusing that he wrote that. I mean, some of
the words later on did get a bit explicit but we always used to just laugh
about it, really. It was kind of good, that was. We were under a bit of
pressure because we were due on the road after Christmas when the
album was done. So there wasn’t a great deal of craziness going down when we
did it.”
Neil Murray adds to the
tale of “Fool For Your Loving,” the record’s rich and majestic, but oddly
despondent opening track, the only tune that was something of a hit single from
the record, reaching No. 13 on the UK charts and No. 53 in the
US. The track would be re-recorded and re-attain hit status in 1989, but its
rightful karmic place was in the here and now anchoring Ready An’ Willing .
“I could tell it was going to be a fairly
commercial song with a fairly good hook, so I went back and re-did my bass on
it and put in as much as I thought I could get away with, really,” remembers
Murray. “And then when it came to mix, I think Ian had a lot of say. I think they
started mixing that one first, and I came in to listen and the
bass was pretty much in the background and I said, ‘Look, that’s not really how
it’s supposed to be. I put all these new bass lines to it in order that it was
going to be heard. Why didn’t you turn it up?’ or whatever.
“I went home dejected and at three o’clock
in the morning I got woken up by the phone. Martin Birch said, ‘Yeah, we put it
back your way; it sounds much better.’ It could have sounded quite different.
And I think the version on Ready An’ Willing is much better than the
version on Slip Of The Tongue and I think some of it has to do with
on the album’s title track, a sinister heavy metal whack that stood out as a
forbearer of things to come. “Well, ‘Ready An’ Willing’, it’s a bit of a
mystery for everybody because it doesn’t have my name on it. And that’s because
we had a policy at the time of having one track on the album we would kind of
split between all members of the band. And then Ian Paice came into the
band, and Ian Paice, because of him being The Bank Of Paice – and him knowing
what it was like to sell millions of records because of Purple – when it came
time to do the credits, Paicey said, ‘Well, Bernie shouldn’t be on it.’ ‘Well,
he wrote most of the song.’ ‘Well, he wrote the last two songs, and nobody
wrote anything else, but it was divided between the band.’ And he said, ‘Oh,
no, no, if this album sells a million, that means I make £2000 less,’ because
he was very money-sorted, whereas the rest of us were just getting on the
road and playing rock ‘n’ roll. But that’s Ian all over. That’s why my name
doesn’t appear on it, even though I’m kind of a part of it.”
Coverdale, however, sided with Paice on
this one, saying that the track was being cooked up primarily by himself and
Moody, precisely because Marsden was still in Africa. One would surmise the
missing credit is a dig at the irksome situation. After all, this was indeed the
track designated by Coverdale to be the one on which the entire band gets
credited. The slight adjustment to that policy... well, Bernie was supposed to
be back from vacation and working.
“‘Sweet Talker’ was written just before
we went to the session,” continues Marsden. “I more or less had the
idea for the song, David wrote the words, and ‘Fool For Your Loving’ was a
classic Coverdale/Marsden/Moody. I kind of had the riff, and the
riff goes through the song to the bridge part. And Micky had a kind of really
cool piece to join them together, which is from another song of his. I said, ‘Well,
why don’t we put that in this?’ and it all made sense, and David wrote the
words. And it took about, I should think, maybe about an hour-and-a-half. ‘Love
Man’, I thought was a great modern blues at the time.
“David got a lot of stick for sexist
lyrics and I thought that was quite amusing that he wrote that. I mean, some of
the words later on did get a bit explicit but we always used to just laugh
about it, really. It was kind of good, that was. We were under a bit of
pressure because we were due on the road after Christmas when the
album was done. So there wasn’t a great deal of craziness going down when we
did it.”
Neil Murray adds to the
tale of “Fool For Your Loving,” the record’s rich and majestic, but oddly
despondent opening track, the only tune that was something of a hit single from
the record, reaching No. 13 on the UK charts and No. 53 in the
US. The track would be re-recorded and re-attain hit status in 1989, but its
rightful karmic place was in the here and now anchoring Ready An’ Willing .
“I could tell it was going to be a fairly
commercial song with a fairly good hook, so I went back and re-did my bass on
it and put in as much as I thought I could get away with, really,” remembers
Murray. “And then when it came to mix, I think Ian had a lot of say. I think they
started mixing that one first, and I came in to listen and the
bass was pretty much in the background and I said, ‘Look, that’s not really how
it’s supposed to be. I put all these new bass lines to it in order that it was
going to be heard. Why didn’t you turn it up?’ or whatever.
“I went home dejected and at three o’clock
in the morning I got woken up by the phone. Martin Birch said, ‘Yeah, we put it
back your way; it sounds much better.’ It could have sounded quite different.
And I think the version on Ready An’ Willing is much better than the
version on Slip Of The Tongue and I think some of it has to do with
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