Rise by Daryl Braithwaite
The title of Daryl Braithwaite’s third solo album was inspired by two disparate images. “I’d seen a black-and-white photo of a guy sitting on the edge of a bed that prompted me with the <i>Rise</i> title,” he tells Apple Music. “And having just gone to China after the Tiananmen Square massacre, and then relating that to the students and the uprising, I thought, ‘It all makes sense.’” With 1988 predecessor <i>Edge</i> having re-established Braithwaite as a musical force in Australia after years out of the spotlight, <i>Rise</i> was designed to capitalise on that momentum. Teaming up once again with <i>Edge</i> producer Simon Hussey, Braithwaite set about putting together a set of songs that captured the musicality of influences such as Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins. “I had this complete confidence we would get it right,” reflects Braithwaite. “I don’t think we really let it bother us about ‘Will this one work?’ We thought, ‘We’ll do the best we can; if they like it, then so be it.’” In addition to hits such as the title track and the Steve Winwood-esque “Higher Than Hope”, <i>Rise</i> yielded one of Braithwaite’s most recognisable songs in his cover of Rickie Lee Jones’ “The Horses”, a track the singer only brought to the table towards the end of the sessions. Here he looks back on that song and several other key moments from <i>Rise</i>. <b>“Rise”</b> “A certain percentage of the population just want to rise, whether it be in romance or life itself. And I think for me it related back to prior to <i>Edge</i> being released and building up to that.” <b>“Waters Rising”</b> “Simon Hussey wrote it about Nyngan and the [1990] floods. We recorded it and I think I got to use a rain stick on the start. I’ve played that song live more often than not, and it’s lovely. The dynamics of it are just fantastic: It goes from very soft to roaring to nothing.” <b>“Higher Than Hope”</b> “Simon wrote the majority of it, but he was kind enough to include me in the writing credit. I think it was coming from Simon’s point of view—he was occasionally coming out of a dark place and hoping of getting into a brighter situation personally.” <b>“The Horses”</b> “I loved Rickie Lee Jones’ version, which is why I took it into the studio and said, ‘Simon, can we do a version?’ And he and [the Sony rep] apparently looked at each other and went, ‘Daryl’s lost his mind!’ Then Simon went, ‘Okay, we’ll work on it.’ Having spoken to Rickie Lee Jones about it, there’s no real answer as to why it’s so popular, whether it’s the musicality, the lyrics... I don’t know. It’s just the luck of the draw.” <b>“I Can See Higher Than Before”</b> “I’d been with a journalist friend of mine [in Beijing] and we’d been semi-accosted by the police for taking photos. And he actually got taken away by the secret police and interrogated—not harshly, but they took him away for six hours. Seeing the effect or the actual physical evidence of when the tanks had been around Tiananmen Square, I went home and thought, ‘I’ll write about that trip to Beijing.’”
