‘Most of the time I was only wearing tiny shorts’: how Devendra Banhart made I Feel Just Like a Child
I wrote I Feel Just Like a Child when I was 18, but it wasn’t until I was 23 or 24 and making the Cripple Crow album that it made sense to record it properly.As a teenager I’d thought of myself as an old blues guy and demoed it on an unplugged electric guitar as a slow blues.When we recorded it for Cripple Crow I’d found my musical family, people like [producer-musicians] Andy Cabic from Vetiver, Noah Georgeson and Thom Monahan.Along with the likes of Joanna Newsom and Adam Green from Moldy Peaches, we were doing a sort of anti-folk that was labelled “freak-folk”.We were living in Woodstock in upstate New York in our own mini 60s world, a utopian bubble where it felt like music from any period was up for grabs.
We spent a lot of time in record stores and the music library, grabbing soundscapes, electronic music, the Fugs, the Band or Basement Jaxx, trying to gain influence from everything we could.We recorded in nearby Bearsville, a legendary studio that had been set up by Bob Dylan’s manager Albert Grossman when Dylan lived there.We had a hippy ethos about pacifism, sisterhood and egalitarianism, but also I was very aware that this wasn’t the 1960s – it was the leather jacket, Strokes period of music – so there was a parody element to it all.However, I Feel Just Like a Child was genuine.It was about how I could get away with being myself – naive and idealistic – without shame.
When I returned to it for Cripple Crow, I wrote more lyrics.“From my womb to my tomb” is my little homage to Marc Bolan – a direct reference to T Rex’s Cosmic Dancer.Otherwise I wrote from the perspective of a kid, seeing the world with fresh eyes.It’s partly a bricolage of childhood memories: “I need you to help me blow my nose and I need you to help me count my toes.” The line “I need you to please explain the war” comes from the idea that the adults ruin everything.
“I was born thinking all under the sky didn’t belong to a couple old white guys” is about how most of the world is owned by so few people.I was listening at the time to a lot of Fela Kuti, so the Cripple Crow version became more of a groove.In the studio we were like kids in a candy store with all this equipment, and wanted to do something more interesting than a key change, so in the middle of the song it sounds like everything goes underwater.And when someone walked past with a husky I said: “Do you want to howl with your dog?” – so there’s a dog credited on the album.One night some friends were filming, which ended up being the video and captures how we were then.
Most of the time I was wearing only tiny shorts.I remember using the loo at a gas station and forgetting to lock the door.Somebody walked in and saw this scrawny, trembling, big-bearded, Charles Manson-looking guy sitting on the toilet.I owe that person a lot of therapy.We were all broke, so we stayed at Devendra’s place.
His family home in Poughkeepsie, New York, was always full of people.It was winter and really cold, so we were always at the house or in the studio working on things.He was writing so many songs that he would call his answering machine and leave melodies on there for himself.Everything was recorded live, and he’d gather us all in to do backing vocals.Devendra’s original demo of I Feel Just Like a Child is a solo live performance of the kind he did a lot in those days.
The version on Cripple Crow has a dancier arrangement and absorbs the possibilities of a proper studio and a roomful of musicians.I played acoustic guitar and the percussion is a combination of Devendra, Greg Rogove and myself.We were recording at a very fast clip and decisions were being made very quickly as we went along.It was a period of such furious activity.Devendra had at least 30 songs that he wanted to record, even if some of them were a minute-and-a-half things.
They were pouring out of him.The 20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition of Cripple Crow is out on 12 September on Heavy Flowers.An early demo version of I Feel Just Like A Child is available now on streaming services and YouTube
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