SONGS: #5 - Midnight Crisis - "Sister Vicodin"

To begin with, in the interest of full disclosure, yeah, I got the idea for this song from the Stones' "Sister Morphine"...and also, for that matter, from the Pillbox song, "Sister Caroline" (what does THAT rhyme with, again?). I simply thought that it might be a cool idea to write something that was making a similar statement, but put in a modern context. 

With that said, this concept of juxtaposing (and personifying) the intoxication & escapism that comes from the likes of chemicals & love, in a song, is hardly new or uncommon. Hell, everyone from Roxy Music to Vain to...(I don't know).....the fucking Lemonheads...have all done that successfully.

So, I figured it was worth a try.

But, it wasn't REALLY that well thought out, at first, to be honest. The title "SISTER VICODIN" popped into my head one day when I was washing my hair or some shit. I liked it, but, what was I gonna do with it? 

It didn't take long for me to formulate the chorus, in my head....."SIS-TER!! VIC-O-DIN!!!" In my imagination, I heard these chords behind it (which still sound a little bit to me like the KISS song, "Tears Are Falling", turned on its head). I kept turning it over & over in my head, and I've learned that if that happens, there's a distinct possibility that you might have something good. 

[I became so distracted by it that, one day, when we were walking around Flushing in search of Soup Dumplings, my girlfriend basically asked me what the hell my problem was. So, I sang her the chorus idea right there on the street! That cleared it up...]

A couple of weeks later, I went to Lase's house to do some writing, armed with this, and another idea or two (we also wrote "(Get Home) Dangerous" that night). It took us a good hour of me singing this guitar idea for the chorus to Lase before we got on the same page with it, but it finally clicked. Lase then started playing this...for lack of better terms, "druggy", "airy" guitar part, that became the basis for the verses. In my typically subtle way, I said something like, "THAT's FUCKING GREAT!" Lase didn't think it worked, for some reason I don't remember. "HOGWASH!!" It was fucking PERFECT, as far as I was concerned! I grabbed a pen & paper & scrawled down the lyrics for the verses right there. "Magic in disguise," indeed!

We had the lion's share of it finished, or so we thought, when Lase plugged in his guitar, hit these fucking ARENA-sized chords, and started sort-humming this cool melody....and it made me say something like, "HOLY FUCK!" That became that bridge part, which is my favorite part of the song, and might be my favorite few seconds of the album, for some reason I can't explain. (I kind of ripped off Deep Purple a little bit when I came up with the "Another wasted sunset..." lyric, but...I didn't think that they would mind).

Speaking of lyrics, they're pretty self-explanatory in this song, but my favorite ones are in the second verse, where I'm describing withdrawal symptoms, etc: "Boiling fevers, ice-cold sweats, My sheets are soaking wet, Daydream nightmares, for Christ's sake, DYIN' AWAY THE NIGHT AWAKE!"

I digress...

I've learned a lot from this song. For one thing, it was a really profound example of turning some stupid idea that exists nowhere but between ones ears into something tangible. That alone blows my mind sometimes.

Another thing I learned the HARD way from this song is that, just because you write a song in a lower register, one that fits your range extremely well, and all of that shit....that doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to be easy to sing. This song (along with "Make It Alright" - more on that one in a couple of weeks) has the most subtleties & vulnerabilities that need to come out in the vocal...which, along with the actual singing itself, has to be exactly right, or it's not worth bothering with. As such, I think I sang this song at least 15 times at Lase's studio before we had enough for him to piece together a good vocal. I wouldn't have known it when we wrote the song originally, but this song was a BITCH for me to record vocals on....but we finally got it, and...well, at least for me, it was worth all of that hard work and frustration. That's the kind of shit that's going to make you that much better during your next go-around...or at least, I hope so!

Enough.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for listening. It means a lot to me.

Three more songs to go...

Marty E.

"My world is spinnin', I don't look back
Earthquakes....heart attacks"

LAST WEEK's ENTRY: 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 "Sister Vicodin on BandCamp

Download "Sister Vicodin" on CD Baby (or buy Heart Beatings CD)

Download "Sister Vicodin" on Apple iTunes

Download "Sister Vicodin" on Amazon

"Sister Vicodin" on Spotify