SONGS: #7 - Midnight Crisis - "Make It Alright"

"It's dark every night..."

It's not exactly profound is it? I mean - no shit, Sherlock! But, I never heard anyone else say it, much less sing it, so....I pretty much wrote a song around it.

I'm going to try to keep this brief.

This is basically a dramatic love song about, as I sing, "Tempting fate with a good time," & then shit gets out of hand with the person you're having the good time with. 

Shit happens.  

You got into an argument - Lord knows (or, at this point, cares) why. You wake up the next day hung over, alone, and feeling like the horse's ass you rode in on.  And, of course, you're looking for the very person you were in a bitch match with some hours before to make you feel safe and secure, because she (or he) is, "the only thing that makes it alright."

That's rich, isn't it?

I intertwined some lyrics about my semi-religious upbringing in there ("Orphan bastard child of God, Born of a rumor and a fraud"). I think I did that to sort of deepen the song with references to being indoctrinated with some idea of "God" & morality, & coming to the realization that these things don't necessarily make anyone righteous. In fact, they can have the opposite effect, really. I think that's why I tied up that first verse with my favorite line in the song: "The one who doesn't judge deserves all the love." Tell THAT to a religious nut!

What does that have to do with the song? Well, it beats the hell out of me, but...maybe, since it's a love song, I sort-of threw the love of family into the mix, which sort of intertwines with the religious themes, just like the love of that special one who "makes it alright" gets intertwined with too much booze! My life-long morbid fear of & fascination with death probably makes a cameo appearance as well. (I'm not gonna talk about that - but those of you who know me know all too well what I mean). 

We all come from somewhere, and that leads us to where we are....

Anyway, enough of that shit.

I have a couple of random notes about the second verse that are kind-of funny. First, I sing "Gone, but not forgiven", because I saw that on a list of strange gravestone epitaphs in an almanac when I was a little kid, and it popped into my head when Lase and I were writing the song. Which leads me to the second line, "Alternative to living", which I think I once saw in a magazine ad for time shares or some shit - "THE PERFECT ALTERNATIVE TO LIVING!" I thought that was hilarious. (It's too bad that I can't find it).

As for writing the song, like most of them, it came quickly. I had that little lyric idea, and the beat with the sort-of "half-note-triplet" feel, & Lase & I took it from there. Lase really brought it to another level, yet again, when he pulled that bridge part out of his ass. I love that part.

Recording the vocals for this song (much like "Sister Vicodin") was kind of a BITCH. It's such a personal song, and one that requires a plaintive vocal, which can't be forced, or it's going to sound hokey as fuck. So, I did my best (which, admittedly, was a long shot at best) to evoke some of my favorite singers, like Mark Lanegan, & Lou Reed, & Nick Cave, to get the job done. while still keeping it my own enough to not sound like some cheap imitator. I think it came out the way I envisioned it. Lase's guitar textures are fantastic (which is the reason why I wanted to record it in the first place), and Mike Maenza, once again, really stepped up with fantastic drumming on here - taking a little idea of mine, and making it explosive. I applaud them.

That's enough.

One more song to go, next week.

Thanks for reading; thanks for listening.

Marty E.

"We're all messed up but nowhere to go..."

LAST WEEK's ENTRY: SONGS: #6 - Midnight Crisis - "Lost & Found"

THE WEEK BEFORE THAT: SONGS: #5 - Midnight Crisis - "Sister Vicodin"

THE WEEK BEFORE THAT: SONGS: #4 - Midnight Crisis - "(Get Home) Dangerous"

THE WEEK BEFORE THAT: SONGS: #3 - Midnight Crisis - "Kiss My Apocalipps"  

THE WEEK BEFORE THAT: SONGS: #2 - Midnight Crisis - "Midnight Somewhere"  

THE WEEK BEFORE THAT: SONGS: #1 - Midnight Crisis - "Take Control"

Stream/Download "Make It Alright" on BandCamp

Download "Make It Alright" on CDBaby (or buy Heart Beatings CD)

Download "Make It Alright" on Apple iTunes

Download "Make It Alright" on Amazon

"Make It Alright" on Spotify

SONGS: #6 - Midnight Crisis - "Lost & Found"

This is another song (like "(Get Home) Dangerous") in which the lion's share of the lyrics in the first two verses were written a long time ago - in this case, probably 15 years back! The strange but cool thing about that is that they're still extremely relevant to me, after that long - in spite of (and maybe because of) the fact that the meaning of them has changed, or at least the implications of them have become more substantial. Time can do that kind of thing.

I wrote a lot of the first two verses not too long after 9/11, when we were dealing with the aftermath & getting our "sea legs" back in the city.  That's where the the term "New York Post [or post] apocalypse" comes from. For one thing, it really DID feel like the end of the world (and surely life hasn't been the same since)...and also, it was the dawn of the celebutard-focused reality tv "tabloid culture" that infiltrated the popular consciousness around that time & that we're still quite in the midst of today. So, there's a double entendre there, if you like.

Anyway, those initial lyrics floated around in my head for a long time, until I eventually started writing my own shit in order to see what might happen. Again, I figured, if something is STILL on my mind that I wrote in 2001, or whenever, then, maybe I have something at least marginally worthwhile, here.

With that said, what do they MEAN, now? Well...a lot of the New York City that I fell in love with is gone now. I'm not going to turn this into a soapbox sermon about hyper-gentrification, but, let's face it, it's affected a lot of us. It's turned Downtown, NYC, which was once a place full of beautiful, creative, & poor people, into a stomping ground for ugly, rich half-wits. With that said, I still love it here, and when I take a look around, despite what has been lost, I still see a lot of cool people and cool shit happening here. It's all just fewer and further between.

So, I guess when I consider everything, I'd say that the song is about keeping your head straight, your spirit up, and your resilience intact in a world that seems to be perpetually crumbling into a pile of shit, and believing in yourself despite overwhelming evidence that doing so might define insanity. 

You know...all of that shit!

So, with all of that in mind, I rewrote the lyric to inform the song of all the time between the initial lyric idea, and the time when I made something of it, as it were....

...and then I heard this riff, that must have been inspired by the likes of Girls Against Boys, the Wildhearts, and New Model Army (whose socially conscious, rebellious themes might have also provided counsel)...and pretty much wrote the skeleton of the song based on that. I had that "get on down-down-down-down-down" sort of hook on my mind for awhile, and found that it fit over that riff quite nicely. 

Besides pulling the chorus part out of my ass, that's about it.

I made a little demo out of it, and was really on the fence about how I felt about it. I knew that it was coming from a sincere place with me, but...sincerity doesn't always translate. Did it sound hokey? Did it sound like the real deal? Did it ROCK, for Christ's sake?

Fast-forward to when Lase recorded the song for real, and added his explosive guitar magic on top of it, and....the answer, at least for my ears, was a resounding yes. One thing that particularly took me aback was how much Mike Maenza's drum-pummeling really whipped the song into submission. Not bad for something I came up with on the fly from an old-ass idea on a hung-over afternoon in my room, on an acoustic bass!

That's the if, and, & butt-end of it. Thanks for reading, thanks for listening....there are two songs left on the album. Stay tuned for entries on each.

Marty E.

"Flesh and blood, concrete & steel
To dust we all shall fall..."

LAST WEEK's ENTRY: SONGS: #5 - Midnight Crisis - "Sister Vicodin" 

THE WEEK BEFORE THAT: SONGS: #4 - Midnight Crisis - "(Get Home) Dangerous"

THE WEEK BEFORE THAT: SONGS: #3 - Midnight Crisis - "Kiss My Apocalipps"  

THE WEEK BEFORE THAT: SONGS: #2 - Midnight Crisis - "Midnight Somewhere"  

THE WEEK BEFORE THAT: SONGS: #1 - Midnight Crisis - "Take Control"

Stream/Download "Lost & Found" on BandCamp

Download "Lost & Found" on CD Baby (or buy Heart Beatings CD) 

Download "Lost & Found" on Apple iTunes 

Download "Lost & Found" on Amazon

"Lost & Found" on Spotify