Just to do a reality check on myself, I looked it up, and Ben Harper’s Welcome To The Cruel World and Fight For Your Mind both came out before this tape, so that right there is your explanation, in particular, for what happened here: I was trying to sing like Ben Harper while carrying the emotional depth of Barenaked Ladies on my back.
PAUL COUNT: 6.
1 Lead Vocal, 1 Rhythm Guitar, 1 Lead Guitar (plucking harmonics through the whole proceedings), and three background vocals in the bridge. The three vocals pan during the mix, so they must have been on one channel. I think maybe I did them before the lead vocal, so probably it went in the order of rhythm, lead gtr, bounce to 1, bg1, bg2 (with bg1 bouncing over to it), bg 3 (with bg1 and bg2 bouncing over to IT), then the lead vocal. I hope I was pleased with myself. (I bet I was.)
You can download this tape at the bandcamp if you want it.
Let’s examine this lyric, because I really don’t write like this anymore.
This here is a list song. The word of the day was “Iron,” and I have no idea why, except maybe that the first line dictated the theme for the rest of the song. I’d be interested in writing a new song with that first line as a jumping-off point, and see if I could arrive at a different conclusion. For its part, it’s a cute song. It’s full of puns, and stupid throwaway lines (An iron stomach could keep me stout and portly? Dude.), and incorrect geekery (Iron Man and Batman are probably neck and neck in the gadgetry department, but certainly Tony Stark smokes Bruce Wayne in terms of inventiveness), but it’s cute.
NOT SO TOUGH NOW, ARE YA, IRON MAN?
What did I have against iron? Was the idea that iron is considered strong, but that doesn’t make it perfect? Oh wait, the point is that while I’m not about iron (which by the way, I know, is sometimes pronounced veeeeerrry incorrectly in this song) on the face of it, it has its application: IT CAN HELP ME HANDLE AWFUL AWFUL LOVE. Or, you know, not being called. Because of shit like this.
The harmonics sound cool though, and I like the little tubey jolt at the end there. That was probably an accident that I was happy to leave in there.
Overall, I think this feels like it’s a good precursor for the way I came to like working with vocal arrangements and light, subtle leads that do more to support the main part than to call attention to themselves. The song is a bit trite, but the production has shades of ambition. I listened to this a few more times than I had to to write this entry.
Under My Nails is next!