Track #5: The Ways That We Destroy Ourselves
I can’t remember when I ‘wrote’ this song. I remember and know that I’d always wanted it to be aggressive. From the beginning, the first time I played it to myself, I wanted it to be dirty and grimy with rapid strumming and heavy downstrokes.
If you recognize the chord progression, it’s because it’s the same as ‘Hotel California’. Although I didn’t write it with that in mind. You just sort of realize it as these things happen. But hey, there only so many chords and so many ways that things go together and this happens to be something that feels right and looks right.
I remember demo’ing this song and thinking that it could really be something special. A piece of the larger puzzle, so to speak. When Paul first heard it, he began to refer to it as ‘Colorado Drugs’ for the line in the second verse and that’s what it was for a really long time. To the point, where I think people were kind of surprised that ‘Colorado Drugs’ wasn’t the official name of the tune. But I’d always had this other thing in mind, even if it it’s long and wordy.
When we made it into the studio, I remember this crazy animal energy with this tune. Bill really led on this song and laid down some sickening beats that gave it a vibrant propulsion. The outro where it’s just repeating the chorus had this amazing energy and everybody jammes for a good bit of time before the whole thing ended bombastically. Ultimately, I think the ending was a little too predictable so we opted for a fade-out instead but I just remember the way the drums were crashing around in the big room and Bill pummeled them. It was a lot of fun.
I always imagined the end of the song having an even more dramatic fadeout between the bed of instruments and Matt’s piano lines. I wrote to Paul that I wanted it to sound like everything falls away and Matt is like Count Dracula in a cave. The vision I have is looking up towards a rock outcropping and having Matt hammering on the piano keys and a candlight casting a shadow against the cave wall. I think he’s wearing a cape. That kind of deal. You can hear what I’m talking about if you listen to the separation between the piano and the rest of the instruments as the song fades away.
This song also features some incredible guest performances. First, it’s got Marc Schulman on the guitar. Marc is a bit of a legend in New York rock circles and has a strange empathic bond with his guitar. He played a bit on ‘The Mayo Clinic’ but he’s really the key to the beginning of the song on the record. It’s his guitar tones that lead up to the jumping off point.
The other key performances come from Stan Harrison and Dan Levine on the horns. This is the song that yielded that great little anecdote (ed note: in danger of becoming overused, yes?) wherein we told the guys that we were looking for this pulsing, Mos Eisely cantina, kinda thing and we specifically referenced sax and horns in ‘The National Anthem’. That’s when Stan nonchalantly replied, “I think I can do that. I played on that song.”
As recorded, I think all the parts came together incredibly well and it serves as the perfect ending point to the first side of the record, assuming that there are, in fact, sides.
Now you might say, “What’s the song about?” And then Monte is somewhere in the background yelling at me that I’m giving away all the mystery to the tunes by walking people through what they’re about. Let me see if I can describe this in the right way that retains some of the mystery.
The song is about how people can destroy themselves through self-deception and through lies and in life it’s important to ‘turn the light on’ so to speak and really reckon with the facts of specific situations but that there are cultures dedicated to self-deception. There are other stories and other tales within the lyrics. The image of a ‘cemetery rose’ is kind of captivating.
I think I like the penultimate lines the best:
You can tumble like a shattered wing
Every poet promise is a lie
That last part is inscribed on the CD packaging and, perhaps, a reason to get a hard copy in lieu of the digital copy.
If you want the chords they are: Bm-F#-A-E and then the chorus is A-E-D-A and then end on an F#. If the whole band could jam for 10 minutes and then end on the F# in unison. Well, that would be quite cool, wouldn’t it?
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Chucky
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theflyingchange
