"Cailin" is a song by the

San Diego San Diego ( , ) is a city on the Pacific coast of Southern California, adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a population of over 1.4 million, it is the List of United States cities by population, eighth-most populous city in t ...

–based rock band Unwritten Law from their 1998 album '' Unwritten Law''. Though it was not released as a single, it became the band's first song to chart, reaching number 28 on ''Billboard'''s

Modern Rock Tracks Alternative Airplay (formerly known as Modern Rock Tracks between 1988 and 2009, and Alternative Songs between 2009 and 2020) is a music chart published in the American magazine ''Billboard'' since September 10, 1988. It ranks the 40 most-playe ...

chart.

Background

The song is named after singer Scott Russo's daughter, about whom he penned the lyrics. According to Ex-Guitarist, Rob Brewer, the song was almost not released to radio, as the label wasn’t interested in promoting another single from the album, after three previous ones failed to chart. In an interview with MTV, Brewer explained:

"We were kind of expecting the worst. They said, 'We're going to keep you guys, but we're not going to really work the album anymore. We want you to go back and do another one.' And that was kind of a bummer, because we had always thought that 'Cailin' would be a good radio song".

The band's then manager, Bill Silva, then arranged to get the single played on influential West Coast alternative-rock stations, including KROQ-FM, where it quickly became a favorite with listeners.

Personnel

Band

*Scott Russo –

vocals Singing is the art of creating music with the voice. It is the oldest form of musical expression, and the human voice can be considered the first musical instrument. The definition of singing varies across sources. Some sources define sing ...

*Steve Morris –

lead guitar Lead guitar (also known as solo guitar) is a musical part for a guitar in which the guitarist plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs and chords within a song structure. The lead is the featur ...

*Rob Brewer –

rhythm guitar In music performances, rhythm guitar is a guitar technique and role that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse (music), pulse in conjunction with other instruments from the rhythm section (e.g., d ...

*Wade Youman –

drums The drum is a member of the percussion instrument, percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophones, membranophone. Drums consist of at least one Acoustic membrane, membrane, c ...

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a percussion mallet, beater including attached or enclosed beaters or Rattle (percussion beater), rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or ...

Additional musicians

*Micah Albao – bass *

Rick Parashar Rakesh "Rick" Parashar (December 13, 1963 – August 14, 2014) was an American record producer, recording engineer and musician. Along with his brother Raj, he founded London Bridge Studio in Seattle, Washington, in 1985. During his career he wo ...

–

piano A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a c ...

, keyboards, tambura, percussion *Geoff Turner – DJ *Erik Aho – additional guitar

Production

*Rick Parashar – producer,

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who Invention, invent, design, build, maintain and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials. They aim to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while ...

, mixing *Jon Plum – assistant producer, engineer, and mixing *Geoff Ott – second engineer *George Marino – mastering

References

{{authority control 1997 songs Unwritten Law songs Song recordings produced by Rick Parashar