Track #4: If You See Something
There are no secrets on the origins of this tune. If you travel in or around New York City you have probably seen the signs. They’re everywhere. They say, “If You See Something, Say Something.” The point, of course, is that if you notice anything suspicious – a stray untended backpack for example – go tell a police officer. It’s actually a very effective little campaign.
I was riding the subway home about three years ago when I started dropping the phrase into a song and singing the slogan over and over to myself (as is my tendency). I got home, picked up my guitar and figured out the chords, starting in C.
It really felt, honestly, like a trifle. I probably have hundreds of similar ideas and melodies floating around in my head at any one time. But it also felt clever. And, I suppose, the part of me that has decent instincts around marketing knows that clever is often a very effective way to capture people’s attentions.
The part of the song that I really like and that continues to resonate with me is the pacing and meter of the words and how you can create ambiguous meaning through the differentiated emphasis. Specifically, the phrase “Cut a line from the good to the bad [beat] part” and “Cut a line from the train to the Grey [beat] hound”. That’s the good part as far as I’m concerned.
There wasn’t too much about this song that needed to be changed, frankly, when Paul and I sat down to sketch it out. The trick with this song is a) whether you like it at all and b) how to arrange it.
A whole other set of questions tend to arise when you think about arrangements. There are so many different ways to produce songs and yet there are also, seemingly, and maybe just based on the natural aesthetics of the listener, natural forms. The position that the song wants to take by default.
I do think we discovered one of the more natural forms in the version that we did. We talk about the inspiration being something like a Sufjan Stevens song. This was one of those songs that was a tremendous amount of fun to record in the studio. Where we kind of let our creative instincts roam.
First, we had Pete play the ukulele. That’s the critical element and it gets things started in the right way with that little intro. Rob, in addition to being a wonderful bass player, owns a French Horn and brought that out in the spirit of merriment. And Paul had some ideas for Matt to do some harpischord runs through his keyboard (no, we didn’t rent a harpsichord, sorry bros). And then the best part was setting up a mic in the middle of the studio and having everyone, including E, signing “Say Something!” at the end. It felt like a big group effort and put a smile on all our faces.
After the song was done and we were wrapping it up, I sent an email to the MTA to see if they wanted to license it, maybe. Of course, and as I expected, they weren’t too keen. The song has a very lighthearted feel and doesn’t really correlate to an anti-terrorism message. I subsequently got an email from a guy at the MTA telling me he didn’t advise putting the song on the record and that I should have thought better of writing it in the first place. After a brief consultation, I decided to not respond at all. But I have posted the email here if you want to take a look.
As I think about this song, my mind comes back to the notion of arrangements. For whatever reason, this is the song that seems to have the most possibilities in terms of production. I can easily hear this Dave Sitek kind of thing where you take out the uke and the French horn and you really focus on blasted out reverb-drenched drums. Like a marching band in a dark and terrible tunnel. And that the song is reverberating from the sewers and the gutters of the world and you’re walking along on the sidewalk and you feel the vibrations underneath you, almost like the subway is approaching.
Handclaps and big drum hits and still the wry semi-ironic tone of the vocals and maybe some fuzzed out bass and keyboard. Like I said, Dave Sitek.
But I also think that, to the point of my earlier comment, I’m not sure that’s the default position. That kind of interpretation feels, to these ears, like a reference to a different thing. Like, when we do it, what it is, a remix. Which, in actuality, doesn’t make a lot of sense. I mean, who’s to say what a ‘natural form’ is for a song. It’s kind of a ridiculous idea. But there’s something to it. Maybe it’s the sensibility behind it. The point of view. It just seems to imply something.
Here are the chords:
Verse: C-G-D-G, C-G-D-D-, C-G-D-G,C-D-G Chorus: D-C-G
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