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
Showing posts with label heart beatings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label heart beatings. Show all posts
Sunday, December 3, 2017
Sunday, October 29, 2017
SONGS: #2 - Midnight Crisis - "Midnight Somewhere"
First of all, this song is definitely the most optimistic one on the entire album, and probably the closest thing to "radio friendly" - whatever THAT means, these days.
Not to sound cliche', but, I swear that this wasn't intentional.
All I know is that the night we wrote it, I knew on the train ride over to LASE's house that I wanted to write a song called "Midnight Somewhere", but I had no lyrics, no riffs, and no particular ideas in mind at all. I just thought that it was a cool title, not just in relation to the band's name, but also...regardless of that, it seemed to me like a title that implies a what my idea of what the spirit of Rock n' Roll is all about, which is, essentially, that anything might be possible if you make it happen...and that life presents awesome opportunities, both large and small, at every turn, if your mind and your heart are in the right place and your eyes are willing to see them. PLUS, every night's true beginning, in MY mind, has always been at MIDNIGHT, but....it's always midnight SOMEWHERE, isn't it?
Anyway, we had a little drink of this and maybe some of that, and then Lase picked up a guitar and hit what became that opening riff, & I, in my Rock n' Roll Seinfeldian way, said something like, "That's fucking good! Keep playing THAT!" Then he started singing that little "Ah-uh-ah" hook that we do in the intro sections. This was beginning to sound like something resembling a SONG, already.
I started scrawling lyrics down about whatever came to mind. I was remembering what was typical & magical in its way, not too long ago....wandering down Ludlow Street, maybe a little after 10pm in the late September chill (at least at the time) with no particular destination in mind (ok, full disclosure: Motor City would have likely been the first stop), and not knowing what the night might bring, but knowing full well that the plan was to have as much fun as humanly possible (and maybe write a song about it later - no shit). There's something about that feeling of not knowing what's going to be happening four hours from now, but knowing that you surely as all hell want to find out. If you're reading this, you are likely to know the feeling that I'm talking about, but whether you do or not: "So hot, so bright, Out in the cool breeze tonight, You don't know where you'll go but you're damn sure where you might..." It's not a feeling or a state of mind that's easy to recreate, & trying too hard might ruin it, like a night like that, itself. But...we were in the zone, and I think we might have gotten it as close to in that first verse as we possibly could. Every time I sing it, it still takes me down that street, heading South.
The second verse seems like it might be a little bit of a downer - you woke up after partying & celebrating your very existence. Lord knows where you are & with whom, & you're discombobulated, and not just a little bit hung over. But, at the same time, "You're lucky you woke up today..." It's not all bad. It used to always be my assertion that a bad hangover is a reminder of the good times you had the night before. That's not my point of view nearly as often these days, but....I can certainly still write about it. "The Sun is passing through the hourglass, It's your shining moment make it last.....HEY!!!" The optimism continues, huh? I guess...
That was a way of life for a long time....
That's about it, really....oh, except the bridge....
That just came from this idea I had about...sort of turning chicken shit into chicken salad, as they say. "Obliterate. Deviate. Alleviate. Elevate. CREATE." Again, it comes from the same line of thinking that, to be honest, has probably killed a lot of those of the "creative ilk" - the old stand-by about taking life to the limits in order to fuel your creativity. There's a certain amount of truth to that, but I think that creativity depends a lot more on having experiences, the ability to channel them into whatever your talents dictate, and above all, having something passionate to say about them, and perhaps something to communicate regarding learning from them.
Jesus H. Christ....I digress....
I had delusions of bringing signs onstage with the words from the bridge hand-written on them like Bob Dylan and INXS, but.....that idea got shot down, HAHAHAHAHAHA....
It's kind-of funny - one of the first times we played this song live, I sort-of paraphrased Social Distortion (after a fashion) when introducing this song, by saying, "If you like 'happy songs', enjoy this one, because this is the only one in the set!" (This, if course, isn't entirely true, but...whatever). After the show, my homeboy Chris Santos came up to me and said, "Yo, that 'happy song' was my favorite song in the set!" Hahahahahaha. That's cooler than hell. The way I see it, is...if you like ANY of these songs enough to pick a favorite, then we are definitely getting somewhere. And...hell, maybe THAT's what the song is about.
I don't fucking know. To paraphrase Keith fucking Richards, we just happen to be there when the songs arrive.
Anyway, thanks for reading, thanks for listening, and there will be another entry next week, and ever week until we have one for each song on the album.
Cheers.
Marty E.
"Outshine the brightest star!"
LAST WEEK's ENTRY: SONGS: #1 - Midnight Crisis - "Take Control"
Stream/Download "Midnight Somewhere" on Bandcamp
Download "Midnight Somewhere" on CD Baby (or buy Heart Beatings CD)
Download "Midnight Somewhere" on Apple iTunes
Download "Midnight Somewhere" on Amazon
"Midnight Somewhere" on Spotify
Not to sound cliche', but, I swear that this wasn't intentional.
All I know is that the night we wrote it, I knew on the train ride over to LASE's house that I wanted to write a song called "Midnight Somewhere", but I had no lyrics, no riffs, and no particular ideas in mind at all. I just thought that it was a cool title, not just in relation to the band's name, but also...regardless of that, it seemed to me like a title that implies a what my idea of what the spirit of Rock n' Roll is all about, which is, essentially, that anything might be possible if you make it happen...and that life presents awesome opportunities, both large and small, at every turn, if your mind and your heart are in the right place and your eyes are willing to see them. PLUS, every night's true beginning, in MY mind, has always been at MIDNIGHT, but....it's always midnight SOMEWHERE, isn't it?
Anyway, we had a little drink of this and maybe some of that, and then Lase picked up a guitar and hit what became that opening riff, & I, in my Rock n' Roll Seinfeldian way, said something like, "That's fucking good! Keep playing THAT!" Then he started singing that little "Ah-uh-ah" hook that we do in the intro sections. This was beginning to sound like something resembling a SONG, already.
I started scrawling lyrics down about whatever came to mind. I was remembering what was typical & magical in its way, not too long ago....wandering down Ludlow Street, maybe a little after 10pm in the late September chill (at least at the time) with no particular destination in mind (ok, full disclosure: Motor City would have likely been the first stop), and not knowing what the night might bring, but knowing full well that the plan was to have as much fun as humanly possible (and maybe write a song about it later - no shit). There's something about that feeling of not knowing what's going to be happening four hours from now, but knowing that you surely as all hell want to find out. If you're reading this, you are likely to know the feeling that I'm talking about, but whether you do or not: "So hot, so bright, Out in the cool breeze tonight, You don't know where you'll go but you're damn sure where you might..." It's not a feeling or a state of mind that's easy to recreate, & trying too hard might ruin it, like a night like that, itself. But...we were in the zone, and I think we might have gotten it as close to in that first verse as we possibly could. Every time I sing it, it still takes me down that street, heading South.
The second verse seems like it might be a little bit of a downer - you woke up after partying & celebrating your very existence. Lord knows where you are & with whom, & you're discombobulated, and not just a little bit hung over. But, at the same time, "You're lucky you woke up today..." It's not all bad. It used to always be my assertion that a bad hangover is a reminder of the good times you had the night before. That's not my point of view nearly as often these days, but....I can certainly still write about it. "The Sun is passing through the hourglass, It's your shining moment make it last.....HEY!!!" The optimism continues, huh? I guess...
That was a way of life for a long time....
That's about it, really....oh, except the bridge....
That just came from this idea I had about...sort of turning chicken shit into chicken salad, as they say. "Obliterate. Deviate. Alleviate. Elevate. CREATE." Again, it comes from the same line of thinking that, to be honest, has probably killed a lot of those of the "creative ilk" - the old stand-by about taking life to the limits in order to fuel your creativity. There's a certain amount of truth to that, but I think that creativity depends a lot more on having experiences, the ability to channel them into whatever your talents dictate, and above all, having something passionate to say about them, and perhaps something to communicate regarding learning from them.
Jesus H. Christ....I digress....
I had delusions of bringing signs onstage with the words from the bridge hand-written on them like Bob Dylan and INXS, but.....that idea got shot down, HAHAHAHAHAHA....
It's kind-of funny - one of the first times we played this song live, I sort-of paraphrased Social Distortion (after a fashion) when introducing this song, by saying, "If you like 'happy songs', enjoy this one, because this is the only one in the set!" (This, if course, isn't entirely true, but...whatever). After the show, my homeboy Chris Santos came up to me and said, "Yo, that 'happy song' was my favorite song in the set!" Hahahahahaha. That's cooler than hell. The way I see it, is...if you like ANY of these songs enough to pick a favorite, then we are definitely getting somewhere. And...hell, maybe THAT's what the song is about.
I don't fucking know. To paraphrase Keith fucking Richards, we just happen to be there when the songs arrive.
Anyway, thanks for reading, thanks for listening, and there will be another entry next week, and ever week until we have one for each song on the album.
Cheers.
Marty E.
"Outshine the brightest star!"
LAST WEEK's ENTRY: SONGS: #1 - Midnight Crisis - "Take Control"
Stream/Download "Midnight Somewhere" on Bandcamp
Download "Midnight Somewhere" on CD Baby (or buy Heart Beatings CD)
Download "Midnight Somewhere" on Apple iTunes
Download "Midnight Somewhere" on Amazon
"Midnight Somewhere" on Spotify
Sunday, October 22, 2017
SONGS: #1 - Midnight Crisis - "Take Control"
"Take Control" is the first song on Heart Beatings, my first album with Midnight Crisis, which is my first album as a lead singer & songwriter, (along with LASE, of course)....and furthermore, it's the first complete-incomplete song idea I've every put together on my own (which LASE added to later).
So, there are a lot of firsts, there.
Oddly enough, that song came spontaneously, out of cluttered air, about four years ago. It was one of those rare nights (at the time) when I stayed in & chilled after at least a week of going out every night. I was sitting with my acoustic bass guitar, which I'd had for the better part of ten years, but had done nothing short of jack shit with...and I thought: let's try something this rhythmic riff idea that I got from the Sisters of Mercy's song "Ribbons" - really simple, but quite deliberate, and easy to put a melody and an attitude over. So I fucked around with it, rolled it, poled it, and marked it with an E...but then I had to go to the other part of this idea...which was to take the main riff to Janes Addiction's "Ain't No Right", and put THAT through the same battering process to change it JUST enough to sound like it might resemble something of its own. (I also wanted all of this this contextualized by some sort of Guns n' Roses "Rocket Queen" or Motley Crue "Too Young To Fall In Love" sort of feel and swagger, if you will). Then, somehow, I came up with the bridge part, too, just via trial and error.
It's not as if I was or am ANY kind of bass player, or guitar player, but I am able to teach myself how to play what I have on my head and show it to someone else...who can then take the main idea and add the punctuation - dot the Ts and cross the Is - make this bold, and italicize this, and add lots of colors & shades & cool shit to it, and make it a fucking SONG, ya know?
I digress...
Another really funny thing I did when I did the original demo of the song (which, like all of my song ideas, I made using GarageBand on my phone, and doing a LOT of swearing in the process) was....I banged out a sort of "machine-shop" percussion track on this metal stool of mine, kind-of like I'd imagine Cop Shoot Cop probably did once upon a time, and it gave it this really cool, unique special percussion effect. It's for the reason that I banged out a similar pattern on an iron skillet when we recorded the song for real, at LASE's house, and if you listen really closely, you can start hearing it, I think, after the chorus kicks in.
Lyrics? Hell, I don't know. I came up with the entire thing on the fly, lyric-wise, and kept 95% of it the way I wrote it that night. It was just something that took shape, in that spontaneous, stream-of-consciousness kind of way that songs (sometimes the best ones) often do. I after I'd gotten the musical skeleton down, I just listened to it, and, without thinking about it, started with, "Sometimes I think about you when I'm lost into the night...." (a little PJ Harvey and a little Only Ones - right in the first line, huh?). I mean, ANYONE from your girlfriend to your grandma wants to hear that, you know what I mean? But you have to say these things within the rhythmic context of the song, and hopefully wrap enough of a melody around it to make it palatable for anyone besides yourself, HAHAHAHAHA!!! It can be a bitch....but when it works, it works.
My favorite lyric? The last line in verse 1: "...every tear you cry paints a picture of my heartbreak."
The chorus? "Take control"...of what, exactly? Hell....I think I was just really singing about what the fuck I was doing, now that I think about it. I'd had a lot of song ideas in my head for years, some being better than others, and was frustrated that none of them were coming into fruition. So, without giving it a lot of thought, I finally grabbed myself by the breaches and got to work....and now, we finally have an album of it.
I digress....
Anyway, the lyrics took about 5 minutes to write, and I finished the demo around 6am or so, or in my world, bed time!
It's the coolest thing in the world for me to have made this a real, recorded song, with LASE's killer guitar madness, not to mention his top-fucking-notch production/engineering work, + Mike's brutal warrior drums whipping it mercilessly into shape.
Anyway, download a copy....or at LEAST stream it.
And thank you for listening.
Next song, next week.
Marty E.
"Nothin' matters but tonight and you and me..."
Stream/download "Take Control" on BandCamp
Download "Take Control" on CD Baby (or buy Heart Beatings CD)
Download "Take Control" on Apple iTunes
Download "Take Control" on Amazon
"Take Control" on Spotify
So, there are a lot of firsts, there.
Oddly enough, that song came spontaneously, out of cluttered air, about four years ago. It was one of those rare nights (at the time) when I stayed in & chilled after at least a week of going out every night. I was sitting with my acoustic bass guitar, which I'd had for the better part of ten years, but had done nothing short of jack shit with...and I thought: let's try something this rhythmic riff idea that I got from the Sisters of Mercy's song "Ribbons" - really simple, but quite deliberate, and easy to put a melody and an attitude over. So I fucked around with it, rolled it, poled it, and marked it with an E...but then I had to go to the other part of this idea...which was to take the main riff to Janes Addiction's "Ain't No Right", and put THAT through the same battering process to change it JUST enough to sound like it might resemble something of its own. (I also wanted all of this this contextualized by some sort of Guns n' Roses "Rocket Queen" or Motley Crue "Too Young To Fall In Love" sort of feel and swagger, if you will). Then, somehow, I came up with the bridge part, too, just via trial and error.
It's not as if I was or am ANY kind of bass player, or guitar player, but I am able to teach myself how to play what I have on my head and show it to someone else...who can then take the main idea and add the punctuation - dot the Ts and cross the Is - make this bold, and italicize this, and add lots of colors & shades & cool shit to it, and make it a fucking SONG, ya know?
I digress...
Another really funny thing I did when I did the original demo of the song (which, like all of my song ideas, I made using GarageBand on my phone, and doing a LOT of swearing in the process) was....I banged out a sort of "machine-shop" percussion track on this metal stool of mine, kind-of like I'd imagine Cop Shoot Cop probably did once upon a time, and it gave it this really cool, unique special percussion effect. It's for the reason that I banged out a similar pattern on an iron skillet when we recorded the song for real, at LASE's house, and if you listen really closely, you can start hearing it, I think, after the chorus kicks in.
Lyrics? Hell, I don't know. I came up with the entire thing on the fly, lyric-wise, and kept 95% of it the way I wrote it that night. It was just something that took shape, in that spontaneous, stream-of-consciousness kind of way that songs (sometimes the best ones) often do. I after I'd gotten the musical skeleton down, I just listened to it, and, without thinking about it, started with, "Sometimes I think about you when I'm lost into the night...." (a little PJ Harvey and a little Only Ones - right in the first line, huh?). I mean, ANYONE from your girlfriend to your grandma wants to hear that, you know what I mean? But you have to say these things within the rhythmic context of the song, and hopefully wrap enough of a melody around it to make it palatable for anyone besides yourself, HAHAHAHAHA!!! It can be a bitch....but when it works, it works.
My favorite lyric? The last line in verse 1: "...every tear you cry paints a picture of my heartbreak."
The chorus? "Take control"...of what, exactly? Hell....I think I was just really singing about what the fuck I was doing, now that I think about it. I'd had a lot of song ideas in my head for years, some being better than others, and was frustrated that none of them were coming into fruition. So, without giving it a lot of thought, I finally grabbed myself by the breaches and got to work....and now, we finally have an album of it.
I digress....
Anyway, the lyrics took about 5 minutes to write, and I finished the demo around 6am or so, or in my world, bed time!
It's the coolest thing in the world for me to have made this a real, recorded song, with LASE's killer guitar madness, not to mention his top-fucking-notch production/engineering work, + Mike's brutal warrior drums whipping it mercilessly into shape.
Anyway, download a copy....or at LEAST stream it.
And thank you for listening.
Next song, next week.
Marty E.
"Nothin' matters but tonight and you and me..."
Stream/download "Take Control" on BandCamp
Download "Take Control" on CD Baby (or buy Heart Beatings CD)
Download "Take Control" on Apple iTunes
Download "Take Control" on Amazon
"Take Control" on Spotify
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