Steel Guitars in Heaven (from cassette tape)

Bill played all the electric guitars on this recording – the rhythm guitar, lead guitar, and bass guitar.

About the steel: Electric guitar strings are made of steel and nickel, but that’s not what this song is about… it’s about an instrument which isn’t actually on this recording – the “steel guitar”. Technically speaking, a steel guitar is any guitar that is played using a steel bar (also known as a “slide”). But more specifically, the “pedal steel guitar” is surely what Bill had in mind when he wrote the song. The pedal steel is a complex instrument, and it’s capable of producing truly marvelous sound.

About the tape: “I Love The Part In The Middle” and “Steel Guitars in Heaven” were recorded in the early 1980’s in someone’s basement on a 2-inch tape machine. At the time, 2-inch tape was a big deal… and this recording of these two songs would be Bill’s only experience recording on 2-inch tape. The audio was then copied from 2-inch tape to quarter-inch tape, and then duplicated several more times – for the purpose of sharing this music with others. Every copy sounds nearly identical (not surprising) but one copy is unique… this unlabeled white cassette tape, seen in the above image. It’s unclear why this cassette tape is different… but it includes a count-in on both songs, and the very end of “Steel Guitars in Heaven” is noticeably different. ???