The Low Tide songwriting and sessions came out of a natural tendency to follow up on the few but more political undertones of the previous recording Love Songs For Cheap Women. Certain songwriters and band associates were listening to a lot of 50’s and 60’s obscure rockabilly and surf music at the time, and the natural tendency to write political lyrics seemed to link up naturally to surf and rockabilly inspired music.

Like LSFCW, the sessions focused on a "classic" rock lineup - two guitars, bass, drums, and vocal - songs easily played by a four piece band with little embellishments other than effects that existed in the studio during the heyday of the rockabilly and surf era: reverb, echo, and an occasional “rare” guitar effect such as fuzzbox or phaser. In a few cases, additional guitar, piano, or percussion was added to fill out a song or idea.

A couple other usual guidelines were followed: From the Brian Eno school of "honor thy error as a hidden intention," when interesting mistakes are made, they are kept or worked into the song. In a few cases, takes from the song's demos were kept, as they featured the most spontaneous and lively performances. And, a conscious decision was made to keep the distortion on the guitars to a low level (by today's standards) to keep that feel of the rockabilly and surf songs of their golden era.

As with the previous recording, most of the music was written first, captured as demos and song ideas, and lyrics added later, most often to explicitly fit music already worked out. In a few instances, music was adapted to fit to lyrics as the lyrics were written.

One other general rule was observed: the subject and content of the lyrics were written to both honor typical subject matter of rockabilly and surf music, and to symbolically focus on current political events.

Enjoy!