Ok, some rules of engagement to start the month. In these daily posts, I’ll mostly be posting lyrics, and possibly some production information or war stories from the composition and posting. What I thought went right and wrong, ideas that might not have made it into production in time, or things that might need to go away later.
What I won’t be doing (very often) is discussing meaning. If it’s obvious what it’s about, then it’s obvious what it’s about. If it’s not obvious what it’s about, then it’s up to you to decide what it’s about.
- Run Run Run (Demo) Ray Toler 2:58
Run, Run, Run
I’m not sure what the kernel of this one was, but “Run, run, run” popped into my head. The lyrics came out pretty quickly – probably 20 minutes total. I’m generally happy with the lyrics. I thought I was being cagey, but it’s pretty unsubtle on subsequent listens. Definitely salvageable, though.
The song you hear is absolutely not the song that was in my head. It was this big EDM-pop-trance-happy-time thing in my head. I’m not sure if it will be any more, but I can still hear the main hook/riff. Maybe that will get used for a track later in the month instead.
Production was pretty rushed – I finished the lyrics up around 7:45, but am still dealing with the fallout from the hard drive crash in December and rebuilding my workstation. I didn’t realize how dependent I’d become on my templates and clippings to speed things up. As a result, when I started working, all of the routings were broken or non-existent, I couldn’t get audio from certain instruments, some plugins weren’t installed, and on and on.
So things are pretty stripped down. Up until the last minute (ok, the last 20 minutes), it was just piano and a very rough scratch vocal. The track you hear now includes the scratch drums I was going to use while I built up the big trance thing, and I decided about five minutes before bouncing the final version out to add the bass line.
It’s also incredibly clear that I haven’t recorded a vocal track since… well, I guess since a year ago. Hopefully I’ll get better over the month as the routine and practice kicks in. It probably needs to be transposed up by one or two whole steps. Let me also address the pachyderm in the room for some people – I do tune my vocals. I’ll talk more about my evolving philosophy on that as well as the whys and hows in that in future posts. There wasn’t much that could be done for this track, though; it would have been polishing a… polishing an unpolishable object. It just needs to be gutted and re-recorded.
Lyrics
Run, run, run
Behind the one in front of you
Never ever changing view
Fun, fun, fun
Just believe, don’t think about it
No reprieve for those who doubt it
As we race to the edges
Plummeting from the ledges
Lemmings running frantically
To save the other side, you see
Or at least to say we’ve won
Sun, sun, son
The light is right in front of you
Vanishing point of view
None, none, none
Understand a thing about it
But never hint that you might doubt it
As we race to the edges
Plummeting from the ledges
Lemmings running frantically
To save the other side, you see
Or at least to say we’ve won
Copyright © 2019 Ray E. Toler, Jr. All rights reserved.
Colophon
- Piano, synth bass: Kurzweil K2600
- Drums: Vermona DRM1 Mk III
Next up: February 2 – There’s No Time to Rest
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