# Help! What opera is this?



## dirtypants (Mar 8, 2009)

I don't know whether to post this in opera or pop, but I've wondered about what the opera that is sampled in this song is for a very long time. Could someone help?

Thanks!

http://degriefer.com/song/Joe_Henry_-_Trampoline_-_(04)_-_Flower_Girl.mp3


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## msegers (Oct 17, 2008)

I just came across this - no mention of the singer or the opera...

http://www.hearsaymagazine.co.uk/joe_henry

Where did the opera strain in Flower Girl materialise from?
I'd recorded my first version of that song as a country song in New Orleans and was very irritated by it. It didn't work. It was innocuous and went by like a blur. I put down a minimal pump organ thing for it and then forgot about it. I got back to Los Angeles a month later and was in the studio with the engineer. He started with a Vari-Speed drum loop which sounded like an army marching and the pump organ and my vocal only. Everything else went out the window at that moment. I was trying to get to something like a Bunuel movie where things came in and out of view like when you're riding a train or in a car and things come into field and out with no precedent for it. Something blossoms and then fades completely. That evening we started playing with samples, which I can't really refer to because we have no clearance for them, but I'm going to tell you young fellows… we had this old Spanish opera record in the studio and were sampling it in the most primitive way - we dropped the needle and got lucky a few times. It made the song three-dimensional for me. It had its own life from then on. I instinctively knew it was the right thing to do. I'd never played with samples before because I never had the tools to do it. It was like making collages and cutting up a magazine, having these little events that happen. I'm probably as proud of that song as I was with anything on the recording - I was delighted with the tone of it.


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## dirtypants (Mar 8, 2009)

Well thanks! Did you really happen to "run into that" or were you searching? Either way, I greatly appreciate it.


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## msegers (Oct 17, 2008)

I was searching. I so enjoyed the song (never had heard of the singer before) that my curiosity was piqued, and I was searching for info, when I ran into that. Thanks so much for making me aware of Joe Henry!


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