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sense of humor . But back then , I was like , “ What IS this ?” But it broke the ice , and we just started laughing . Well , I started laughing — Ritchie doesn ’ t smile or laugh ! But when we sat down at that table , we ended up talking more about paranormal stuff , castles , history , geography . I had basically never been off Long Island or traveled the world , so listening to him and his stories about things that he had experienced was just fascinating to me . He didn ’ t want to talk about music . He wanted to talk about spirits and the other world , paranormal stuff , ghost stories , and haunted places . He was just amazingly cool , and we have kept in touch ever since then .
IE : Have you seen any ghosts ? Or sum-
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when you ’ re in peace and harmony with your surroundings . And one good example of that — and there ’ s a million — is , Ritchie often comes up with the melody lines for us on acoustic guitar . And one day , he was writing a song , and he came up with the melody . And at that point , I was actually reading a book by Philippa Gregory all about King Henry XVIII ’ s wives , and then I was into the era of Catherine Howard and her relationship with Henry , and how she was the youngest one that he had married . And he already had a pretty poor track record with wives before that , so when Ritchie came up with this very somber , very old-sounding line on the acoustic guitar , it almost sounded like a lute , and I thought , “ This would be perfect for the story of |
Catherine Howard .” So I wrote the words for “ Catherine Howard ’ s Fate ,” a song we did back in 1999 . But the first time we ever played it together , we were sitting in the kitchen , and I ’ m like , “ Okay — I came up with the words . Let ’ s sit down and listen to how this fits together .” And as I ’ m singing the words and he ’ s playing the guitar , for the first trial run , I ’ m noticing around the kitchen that all of a sudden , it looked like there was a heavy mist in it . Like somebody was cooking something , and it burned . I couldn ’ t smell anything — there was no scent . But it was just like a fog had descended into the kitchen . And I looked at Ritchie , thinking , “ I wonder if he ’ s seeing this ?” And we learned a long time ago not to lead the other person — don ’ t tell the other person |
what you see or name it , because — even subliminally — you don ’ t want to suggest any idea that forms in their mind . You just want to put it out there that you ’ re seeing something . So I said , “ Do you see what I see ?” And he said , “ Oh — you mean the mist ?” He knew right away . And we were both in that spiritual frame of mind where that veil had started to be lifted , and we started to go into that other world . And it was incredible . It was like the meeting of the souls , the spirits , the minds , and music had transported us . So we took that song on tour with us , and when we played it for the first time , we were playing in England , right down the road from Hampton Court , where Henry had lived with Catherine Howard . And when we read the local paper |
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