Track #8: Don’t Look Away

This is an old song and it sparked all these thoughts about chord changes.  That’s kind of what songs are, you see.  They are just packages of changes.  Shifts.  There’s something in our cells that enjoys this shift, makes it feel and sound so good.  When you start playing your instrument, especially your guitar, and you start making some shifts, you have the root and the seed of the songwriting thing going.  So this is just D to G.  And it’s, obviously, not uncommon, and, equally, it doesn’t really matter.  Because it sounds good.

The same basic progression that the song ‘Honey Eyes’ from the first Lipstik record derives from.  D to G and then in a different part a thing that goes C-G-D.  I think they probably emerge from the same time when I was experimenting with different melodies against the same progression.

I demo’ed some playing of this tune on my 4 track many many years ago.  Then I went through some old demos and liked the way this one had sounded and started working on it again.  I remember coming up with the last part which is the C-G-D thing and having this outro that repeats a phrase and it sounded nice.

So once again another tune that emerged from the weekend back in 2006 where we also got ‘Broken Bow’.  That was where the current iteration emerged albeit one with a bridge that we ended up cutting later.  But we got the basic structure and I got the lyrics out of that weekend and they are essentially a ghost story, told from the perspective of both the ghost and their living partner.  Really, my favorite part is the end where I repeat “well, everybody says you’ve come a long way” which is about death but also about loss.

The point is that you’ve lost something very real and very special and people are all giving you cliche and and telling you that tomorrow is another day and that you’ll make it and all of these things and they’re just empty words and so you repeat them over and over but maybe you’re very dark and bitter and sarcastic about the whole thing and although people say you’ve come a long way you don’t really feel like you have and you’re kind of sick of all these people telling you how to feel even though you know they’re just being nice and they don’t mean anything by it.  That’s what that part is about.

In the studio we got everyone together and played the tune pretty straight with lots of acoustic and a driving beat etc.  It sounded good but not special for some reason.  Just a little too straight.  And for a long time Paul and I were wrestling with how straight it sounded and how kind of conventional.  So Paul proposed that he rip it apart in the home studio at Casa de Rico.  Or maybe I told him he should. I  can’t remember which.  But I think we both agreed that he would see if he could tear it apart and make it more processed and digital and then see what happens.  So that’s what we did.  And I use we in the sense that Paul did it and I offered words of support and encouragement and said things like “let’s hang out and you can teach me Pro Tools like a real pro”

On the outro, Paul originally had Amber singing along with me but I kind of felt like that wasn’t the point of that part.  Two people singing together about how lonely and empty they felt seemed conflicted so even though it meant that my voice had to stand on its own I voted to strip out the pretty female backing vocal and just stick with a lone voice on its own.

Of course we brought in Stan and Dan on that last part and it came together very well.

My favorite part of the tune continues to be the lyrics.  I like ghosts.  I like the idea of lingering resonance.  The residue of our memories sticky on the walls and on the curtains.  I know Monte gets annoyed with me when I dissect the lyrics and strip away the mystery but he can deal.  So specifically, the first verse is about how someone dies and they linger in the halls of your old house and you see them in the night and the moonlight is watery and the ghost is translucent and shimmering and you’re remembering this person that you loved and still love.

Here is the first verse:

Don’t look away
And tell me to stay with the
Echoes in the hall
I can hear the curtain call

And don’t look around
There’s blood on the ground and there’s
Moonlight in my bones
And those empty telephones

I like the idea that the phone is ringing but there’s nobody on the other end anymore and thus they are empty.  So that’st the first verse and the song is about loss primarily but also about ghosts because I think about ghosts a lot and have dreams about them and, yes, I’m scared of them although I don’t know why.  Mostly they don’t seem to want to hurt us.  They’re just so other that I find it both captivating and terrifying.

The song is D-G and then G-A-G-D and then the outro C-G-D is where you sing “well everbody says you’ve come a long way” and the bridge that we deleted was Em-F#m-G-D Em-D-G and thene Em-F#m-G-D Em-G-D.  We can talk about that offline if you want to hear it.

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