“The Pelican and the Android”, from the brand new The logic of the scorpionis one of the songs composed by Luis Alberto Spinettain 1984, for the truncated joint album project with Charly GarcíaFrom those fleeting but passionate encounters came songs like “Rezo por vos” (later both recorded and published their respective versions: Spinetta in Privatefrom 1986, and Garcia in Part of religionfrom 1987, “A Single Thing” (also included in Private), “Speaking to your heart” (published in 1986 in TangoCharly’s album with Pedro Aznar) and “The Pelican…” (Private).
“The theme speaks of that which has managed to transform itself to the point of leaving behind its original reality (…) The central idea was that not only could a pelican and an android fall in love, but they could also have children, and those children symbolize the product of that metamorphosis (…) It is a reflection on the indifference and disdain of the world towards these metamorphoses. There are those who maintain that something like this is not possible, as if we were not already made up of impossible parts,” Spinetta told Juan Carlos Diez (Martropia: conversations with SpinettaBs. Aires, Editorial Aguilar, 2006), on the only mid-tempo song from that Flaco solo album, which included the sample, among other noises and little sounds, of a goal narrated by Jose Maria Munoz.
On one of the many pandemic afternoons/evenings in which García would spend hours submerging himself in the ocean of YouTube, the musician came across the audios from a “pirate album” of his, with the demos of his songs from the 80s. It was there that he discovered an early version of “La pelícana…” that he ended up becoming obsessed with.
“Watching Charly work on ‘La pelícana…’ made me realize what the sensitivity of an artist is“Charly saw that song as a definite possibility for the album long before any of us really thought about it. He was fascinated with YouTube at the time and when he found those outtakes of his own and heard ‘La pelícana…’ he was in shock.”
Charly took the demo and edited it over and over again, removing parts and extracting Spinetta’s voice. Then he put together a whole instrumentation with his keyboards and copied the same pattern with samples from the same electronic drum kit originally used, a Yamaha RX 11, and called on Fernando Kabusački to record some “ethereal guitars.” “Charly told me that they had recorded that version in the 80s, at his house in Coronel Díaz,” Sznaider continues.He told me that the song was Luis’s, that he didn’t sing and that he only played a little and that’s why he decided, beyond recording some vocoders and reinforcements, to give a predominant place to Spinetta’s voice. I think that the discovery of ‘La pelícana…’ was the most emotional moment of the album. He was radiant to be able to use this piece.”.
Kabusacki says he is amazed by the entire process of recording the song. “I don’t know if there have been many times in Argentine rock that something as powerful as this version has been achieved. Every time I listened to it again I was thrilled. Being able to put my guitar in there is really a luxury.” It’s always a luxury to be with Charly and whenever I’m with him I feel like I was with Van Gogh or Beethoven or the Beatles all together, you know? It’s not that I feel like I was with Paul McCartney, I feel like I was with all four Beatles.”.
