Station II

Song facts

“Station II” is a track from 2018 album “Egypt Station“. From “Words Between The Tracks” YouTube series:

“Station II” is a continuation of the opening soundscape, that takes us back to the station. It’s an imaginary station and, you know, I like the idea that it’s a train station or it’s a radio station. It’s just some imaginary place, so we had fun just making up a soundscape. And then at the end of it, we thought it would be a nice idea to vaguely, in this big station, hear someone plugging in a guitar like he is a busker coming to play some songs and earn some money. So you hear him plug in and he plays a riff. It’s the beginning of one of our songs called “Hunt You Down”. So he plays a dum dum dum, dum dum dum and then it gradually gets louder until it becomes the real song.

Paul McCartney

Interview with producer Greg Kurstin, from Rolling Stone, July 3, 2018:

I see that the album begins with “Station I” and ends with “Station II.” What can you tell me about those tracks?

That started with a choir piece that Paul had worked out on the keyboard. Then we brought in David Campbell to help arrange the choir. We went into a cathedral to record that, which was really cool. It started with us in the studio. Paul had worked out some chords that he wanted the voices to do. Then we started creating different ambient noises, some of which came from tape loops. He had a little portable reel-to-reel player, the one they used on Revolver for “Tomorrow Never Knows.” That was done on this little Brenell tape machine. We created some of the sounds on that, like slowing down guitars.

It’s the same exact tape machine from “Tomorrow Never Knows”?

I’m pretty sure that it is. He was a kid back then experimenting and being like, “Hey, if you do this, it actually loops and you can slow down the tape and make these cool effects.” John had one too.

Interview with producer Greg Kurstin, from Rolling Stone, July 3, 2018

Last updated on December 22, 2019

Variations