Kill Zone

Album: Tooth of Crime (2008)
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Songfacts®:

  • "Kill Zone" was written by T-Bone Burnett together with Roy Orbison weeks before the tragically early death of The Big O in 1988. Burnett told Rolling Stone magazine: "Roy told me he wanted to write a song like 'In Dreams,' which starts on his lowest note and climbs very slowly to his highest note. It was probably his last song."
  • This set originated in the early 1990s, when Burnett penned a collection of songs for a Sam Shepard play The Tooth of Crime. However by the time the show hit off-Broadway, many of Burnett's songs had been severely shortened. In 2007 Burnett recorded the full versions of songs for an album, which was released the following year.
  • During his high school years in Fort Worth, Texas, T Bone Burnett was a member of the golf team. Surprisingly, his early fascination with sound began on the golf course. Watching golfing legend Ben Hogan practice, Burnett became captivated by the resonant crack of a golf ball striking through pecan trees. He credits this experience as one of the first moments that sparked his lifelong obsession with the power of sound.

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