Shawna Hansen Ortega (Songfacts): Can you take me through what inspired "Crystal Blue Persuasion"?
Tommy James: Sure. Once we got started with "Crimson and Clover," "Crystal Blue" was part of that first album. The follow-up to "Crimson and Clover" was "Sweet Cherry Wine," which was another song we were working on. And then we recorded "Crystal Blue Persuasion." "Crystal Blue" was interesting. First of all, I was becoming a Christian at that time, and we never thought a thing about it. We never thought that doing something semi-religious was any big deal. We didn't think of it as being politically incorrect or anything like that. We just did what felt right. I wrote "Crystal Blue Persuasion" with Eddie Gray and Mike Vale. Eddie actually came up with the little guitar riff, and Mike and I did the lyrics. And it just felt very right as a sort of almost semi-religious poetic song. But it turned out to be one of the hardest records I've ever made.
We went in and had a set of drums, we had guitars, we had keyboards, and by the end, we just realized we had totally overproduced the record. It just was not "Crystal Blue Persuasion" anymore. It was a nice track, but wasn't right. So we had to produce the record, and then we had to un-produce the record. And one by one we just started pulling the instruments out, until we ended up with a conga drum, a bongo, a tambourine, a flamenco guitar, and a very light-sounding bass. We took out the drums completely. We took out all the keyboards except one, which was a Hammond. And basically ended up with about four instruments on it. And suddenly it became "Crystal Blue Persuasion," the song that we had written. It has kind of an effervescent sound about it, a lot of atmospherics that just weren't there when it had all those instruments on it. Suddenly when you emptied out the record it sounded like "Crystal Blue" again. Had that light airy sound, which it needed to be right. And it took us about 6 weeks to do all that. It really was a very intricate un-production, pulling all the things out. Actually, it was tougher than putting them in because you didn't want to mess up the record, but you wanted to empty it out. So it came out and went #1 for us. It was the follow-up to "Sweet Cherry Wine." We were in Hawaii when it went #1, and I often think of Hawaii as I think of "Crystal Blue Persuasion." By the way, that was the week of Woodstock.
SF: Yes, and you were invited to perform?
Tommy: Like dopes we turned it down. I gotta tell you what – we were in Hawaii at the foot of Diamond Head. This was when "Crystal Blue" was #1 in August of '69. And we played a date in Hilo, and then we had two weeks off and then we were gonna play in Honolulu. They put us at these gorgeous mansions at the foot of Diamond Head, right on the ocean. And our biggest decision of the day was, Do I go in the ocean or in the swimming pool? We were sitting around drinking margaritas, and it was wonderful. And I get this call from JoAnn, my secretary, and she said, "Artie Kornfeld was up," Artie Kornfeld was one of the principals at Woodstock, and he was also a friend of mine. He produced the Cowsills and a whole bunch of other acts, and he was very successful producer. We had the same lawyer. And so she said, "Artie was up and asked if you could play at this pig farm up in upstate New York." I said, "What?!?" "Well, they say it's gonna be a lot of people there, and it's gonna be like a really important show." And I said, "Did I hear you right? Did you say would I leave paradise, fly 6,000 miles, and play a
pig farm? Is
that what you just asked me?" She said, "Well, you could put it like that, but it's gonna be a big show. It's important." I said, "Well, I'll tell you what, if I'm not there, start without us, will you please?" And I hung up the phone. And they did. And by Thursday of that week we knew we messed up really bad. (laughing) But in the end I think I got probably more mileage out of that story.
SF: Okay. Is "Crystal Blue" a reference to the Book of Revelation?
Tommy: Yes, it is. It's out of the Bible, right.
SF: Is that phrase in there somewhere? Or did you just string words together?
Tommy: Well, the imagery was right out of Chapter 19 of the Book of Revelation, about the lake of crystal, and just what John sees. The imagery was just right there. "Crystal blue persuasion," although those words aren't used together, it was kind of what the image meant to me.
SF: And when you sing about "it's a new vibration," are you talking about becoming Christian?
Tommy: Yes, indeed. And, of course, everybody thinks if they don't understand what you're talking about it must be about drugs. But it wasn't. (laughing) We were going through a real interesting time back then, and a very wonderful time. Everybody in the band, by the way, became Christian. And we're very proud of it. And "Crystal Blue Persuasion" was sort of our way of saying that in a kind of pop record way.
SF: That's fascinating. I never knew that about that song. See what I learn? (laughing)
Tommy: It's amazing, isn't it?
SF: Earlier you mentioned "Sweet Cherry Wine." Is that a metaphor?
Tommy: Yes. It's a metaphor for the blood of Jesus.
SF: I know you say you converted to Christianity. How did that transformation take place?
Tommy: Well, I don't worship every Sunday; I worship
every day. Every hour of every day. It's just me, it's part of me. I became a Christian in 1967. I was brought up Catholic, but I really didn't know my faith very well, didn't know what I believed, why I believed what I believed. And in 1967 I was listening to Billy Graham at Shea Stadium on television. And we were writing, as a matter of fact, and I put the guitars down and started listening. And he just gave the most amazingly lucid teaching on why Jesus came. And I had never heard it put quite that way before. I had heard a lot of over-my-head sophisticated kind of things growing up. But I never really heard the gospel message quite like that. And there's a moment, I equate it to hitting a champagne glass – a crystal champagne glass with a fork, you know how you get that pure tone? That's kind of how I felt when I heard Billy Graham explain why Jesus came. And I knew I'd heard the truth. It's too simple and too beautiful to not be the truth, and not be God, you know what I mean? And I was actually high at the time, it's true. And it just cut right through everything that was going on with me, and I just got right up to the TV and put my hand on the TV and sort of made my commitment right there.
SF: Do you find any kind of disparity there between religion and doing drugs?
Tommy: Oh, God, yes. I mean, the point was that the message of the gospel cut right through all that for me. And unfortunately I didn't quit doing drugs for several more years, but the point was that God never let go of me. I just had my rear end pulled out of the fire, and I got rescued. And I'm very appreciative of that. I can't tell you how appreciative of that I am. So to me it's a very street level kind of thing. Everybody in the band converted at different times. But I certainly don't recommend anybody do it that way. (laughing) I feel like I got saved in spite of the fact that I was doing it, not
because of it.
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