1980 Apt 369

Apt 369, written by Mark Fielding Darden in 1980
Copyright #PAu 390-303; March 8, 1982

I wrote this and recorded the basic guitar and vocal track on a cassette player late one night in Raleigh NC. I gave the tape to Dave Gourley, an old college/guitar chum, and he somehow put it on a multi-track machine and added bass and lead guitar. I could not believe it when he gave it back to me. Years later I cleaned it up a bit and created this video.

The lyrics tell a story of an almost-stalker... but he's not. He just loves this girl a lot. Maybe too much, but he'd never hurt her. I promise.
MFD: guitar, drums, vocals, song, video (2021)
David Gourley: lead guitar, bass
Recorded/finished at the Choke Monkey Lounge in Raleigh NC

More:
Many thanks to David Gourley, an old college rock and roll pal from the 70's on this song. My life was in a bit of transition when I wrote this. As I recall I was on some mission elsewhere, so I lent Dave my Teac 4 track recording machine, along with a cassette track of me singing and playing rhythm guitar on a new song I’d just written. I think a metronome was on that tape too. Probably recorded in Florida on a bedside cassette player while visiting my father.

I returned from whatever epic journey I was on and Dave had this song pretty well nailed. I think I added harmonies and drums at that time. Many years later, the vocals on the cassette faded, so I re-sang the vocals. Gourley added the reverse ending somewhere along then too.

It's really hard to remember some of this stuff. But what a classic damn song. Besides some terrific guitar parts, Dave plays an outstanding bass too. I'm playing drums, rhythm guitar and singing. Probably one of the best songs I ever wrote, all around. Two artists have done recordings of it since then.