Tom Merritt (spoon river demo)

. . . continued from William & Emily (spoon river demo):

	This demo of Tom Merritt was the last track on a CD of reference mixes from 1998 & 99. Per the noted “N” next to #22, it didn’t make the cut.

This is an early rendering of the final arrangement, but with an intro & outro, made before I figured out how to assemble the poems. Later, the melody that was hinted at in the beginning & ending becomes its own as a track called A. D. Blood, titled "instrumental #9" in this collection.

Because of the overall story, I wanted to pair Tom Merritt with the shooter from the incident, the character Elmer Karr.

From Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters

In 1999, I took the second, reduced version of the song, machine & all, with me on a Tucson getaway to piece together The Hill. 

Its slower tempo was a better fit for the layers added by Convertino, Burns & Foster.

Tom Merritt (spoon river demo):