The dagger is there where you left it

ok. I am  back. I have recorded two malkmus/pavement covers but that is not for today.

You can download the track at http://tinyurl.com/6l6b28

here is a new song. called “the dagger is there where you left it”. I posted it over at the sonar message boards and its getting some nice reviews. mostly about the song title.

Subject Matter

It is a happy little ditty about child abuse  – or more specifically, the tendency for it to keep “coming back” to haunt/resurface in a victim’s life. I will not go into the motivation.  I will post the lyrics.

About the song

So some interesting things about this one. First. I am ridiculously happy with how this turned out. I rarely don’t like songs that make it all the way to completion, but some make me happier than others.

It is a “big” song sonically. There are a gazillion tracks and yeah some things get lost in the mix but it is not a mess like the last one.

Second, generally songs go their own way when I record because all the arrangements, drums, keys are all missing when I start. This one turned out exactly like I thought it would. I sounds the same as what was in my head before recording. that rarely happens.

And third, i can’t point to anything that influenced the song. generally I can say “sounds like pavement” or “sounds like sonic youth” or some other reference point. All i can say is “the cure? maybe?… if you squint?”

Song Title

as I said, this has gotten some good reviews over at the cakewalk forums. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE mentioned the title. I encapsulates the anger, bitterness, cynicism, sarcasm that the song voices. I am really happy (happy?) with the title and the line of the song it is from.

Songwriting

this started with the very simple guitar part (listen to the first part of verse one). That was it. I tuned up the Low E to F for this one (like the last song) so i guess it’s technically an alternate tuning song. I knew the verse part was in F but I didn’t really have any idea what I was playing. It’s based on the drone of A – E.  The chorus was completely by ear and just tooling around. I had no idea what I was playing until i started incorporating keyboards into it.

Turns out the verse is along the lines of F – C -Dm – A – G (sorta). The chorus changes keys. and I am kind of playing with chords with G D7 C Bm D A G Gm. In the chorus  the bass notes are generally not the root note of the chord (D – D – C – B  – D – Db B – Bm)

Recording

I started by laying down the primary guitars. Then a ton of midi tracks.  Vocals, then lead guitars and the “ohs” midi tracks. I did reuse the distorted guitar dropped an octave with trusty plugin. ( i will have to thank jim cooper of detholz.wordpress.com for suggesting NI guitar rig plugin). I am starting to use that almost exclusively. Used to be a amplitube guy myself.

The midi tracks use a couple of orchestra sounds, the trusty “guitar harmonic” sound which i am smitten with. I use several of the Oh’s sounds during the chorus and ended up using a couple of old school synth sounds as well.

vocals have verse tracks and chorus  tracks (they overlap) and the distorted vox and harmony vox tracks. I doubled the primary guitar, added another distorted guitar sparingly, and too leads for the near end section.

all in all, this is a good 30+ tracks.

Good decisions

I generally double track all my vocals. in this case when I did that, it was bad bad bad. Because in the chorus, certain notes are held for longish period of time, and i am not good enough to hold those notes in pitch… it sounded HORRIBLE. So I ditched the double. and yes, much better.

The build up

Biggest challenge was to create a convincing and non-boring build up at the start of the song. It goes a minute + before any singing. I am still working on it, actually. I am good with long songs but I have become more conscious that not everyone has my patience for my songs. Once it gets going it’s pretty efficient. I am attempting to get in a groove and then as it all just stops, and the singing begins over a single guitar part, the effect, if plan goes as planned, should be jarring. I really like the second stanza and the reintroduction of the pounding rhythm.

so all in all. a big song. I am happy. good song title. hope you like it. here are the lyrics:

do not turn to me and smile
like everything is fine
i will not play your child
no, not when the child is mine

when you had all the power
and my hands were bound with twine
I suffered it in silence
I will not hold my tongue this time

because i have not forgotten
what you cannot deny
when the dagger is there were you left it

i thought that this was over
thought that we had found our home
i thought we stopped the bleeding
thought that we had set the bone

so do not turn to me and smile
everything is fine
when the dagger is there were you left it

because i have not forgotten
what you cannot deny
when the dagger is there were you left it