hey kids! welcome back. i’m kind of excited about this weeks song. i had fun playing with guitary stuff, and with the character of this rocker. it’s called “famous people” (click to open or download).
well. this guy started with an entire drum track, and was a far cheezier animal in my head at first. once i started playing with guitar and bass parts, my aesthetic changed. my ear was drawn more toward eastern mystery macho for some reason. and so it goes. i’m pretty happy with where it ended up though, especially the “chorus,” the repetative spoken part with octave guitars/bass and sort of cliche guitar melody.
MUSIC
i’m a big fan of doubling. i do this with guitar and bass on this tune, as well as vocals. i even have the bass guitar rhythm following the kick drum pretty closely thoughout, something that i think really keeps a tune “tite” in a specifically “tite” feeling way. the bass part of this tune actually came first (second…after drums). i like the the mean little metally sounding lick of the verse, and was imagining AB-ing it with the vocals, guitar lick – vocal line – guitar lick – vocal line – etc, though i wasn’t sure yet what the vocal line would be, musically speaking. i ended up speaking that vocal line after trying a couple of singy parts that just weren’t work’n for me. speaking with some level of urgency seemed to fit the meany dark character of the verse guitar/bass parts than singing did, to my ear.
the idea of the little B section that happens after these verses was to lighten the mood a little, probably residual material from the cheezy original concept i had (albeit vague). it made sense to me to sing this section (in parts too), as the character is lighter and less funky.
the “chorus” or C section is my favorite of these main three. the bass and guitar double was the first idea here. repetitive, a little funky, driving. a character that you hear when the guys in the movie are heading out to do macho things and tensions are high. here, i’ve got bass and two clean guitars doubling the riff, and the octavy distorted guitar playing the eastern sounding single line dealy. really fun character.
the last section of the piece builds over four sections. the drums change slightly in every “section” here, and guitars generally don’t. they loop four different lines, designed to be a little off kilter and to “move” well, or be rhythmically driving. the big distorty line does this by being relentlessly steady eight notes that change keys and chords. bass follows the kick drum (generally) again, another guitar (clean) a short loop around one of the rhythmic themes of the tune, and another plays a more melodic part here, but with an intentionally groovy rhythmic pattern of twos over groups of three. you could think of this like “one, e…a, two…and, a…” based on at “one, e, and, a” four count. i thought about playing even more with rhythm here, firstly trying to mess with triplets over the eighth notes, but found it too be too complicated for how not-so-cool it sounded. i think this (as weird as it is) makes a lot more sense to the ear. it’s tense sounding, and “complicated” but it still moves foward. it flows. to me at least. i guess that’s part of the question. i feel like these things are happening, but really it’s just that these were the intentions of or motivations for the part writing decisions…not to say that they’re affective. 🙂
WORDS
well, what do YOU think the words are about? they’re a bit convoluted, but there are some strains of theme in there that i think ended up making some sense in a strange way. these were written with a stronger focus on character and sound than “meaning” or “subject.” but, i think that my subconscious created some consistencies that work pretty well. i felt, by the end of recording the vocals, that it started to make some sense (not the original intention). in this case TITLE came first, then rhythmic and melodic ideas for the three sections, and then words, A to B to C. i recording myself riffing over these sections with jibberish, which i often do, to get the rhythmic and melodic ideas down. then i added in texts that worked with those melodic constraints, and fit the character that i was hearing.
so, any ideas what it’s about? don’t think of “about” in terms of narrative, but more in terms of character, context, imagery, etc…but i’d be interested to hear what people’s take on subject matter are on this. i have ideas, but i usually consider this sort of thing a “no wrong answers” deal. i love hearing what something sounds like through some elses ears and processing system. here are the letters:
he’s com’n round the bend
make sure it’s ready to go
he’s wearing davidoff
and a face like jonny joe
famous eyeballs long flowy lines
famous pitfalls help me unwind
LIGHT IT I LIKE IT I FEEL IT IN MY EYELID
I’D EAT IT FOR BREAKFAST ON MY YELLOW BRICK LAWN
I HATE IT FILET IT I KNOW IT’S THE JUST WAY IT
LOOKS UP ON THE TELEVISION SCREEN IN MY DREAM..AH AH AH
he’s got a lobster in his hand
he’s made of butter and sand
that’s not our man
we’ve been had…we’ve been had
famous eyeballs long flowy lines
famous pitfalls help me unwind
LIGHT IT I LIKE IT I FEEL IT IN MY EYELID
I’D EAT IT FOR DINNER ON MY ORANGE-WHIP PLATES
I HATE IT JUST ATE IT I KNOW I’VE GOTTA SAY IT’S
GONNA BE A LONG LONG NIGHT…
BUT IF YOU EXIST TO QUALIFY MY SEA-DO
I’LL TAKE YOU TO FAKE VIEWS OF CARAMELLA LIGHTS
YOU’LL LOVE IT BLACK GLOVE IT RUB IT ON MY TUB IT’S
THE ONLY THING THAT MAKES ME LATE…AH AH AH
eh?
thanks for listening/reading.
j
jon steinmeier 