Despite my best intentions to start reasonably early in the day, dog sitting and hanging out with the neighbors led to me not getting this one rolling until later in the evening on the 31st. Once again, I’m trying to work a day ahead. And in increasingly typical fashion, the song you hear today is a completely different one from what I was initially working on.
This often happens to me and in the past, I would have just trashed the original project. The normal process is I find a sound or melody or hook that sounds interesting and start working. I hear big things in my head, but they’re frequently nebulous. I keep moving forward until I get to this point that every attempt to shape what I’m hearing to fit that hazy mental thing feels like wading through molasses. Or, as is the case with this one, what’s in my head is outside the scope of a 24 hour production deadline. So about mid-day today, I closed that project and opened a new one. 1I’m already short on time this month, so I don’t want to commit to this, but I think it might be interesting to also post my abandoned things. I have to think about the best way to do that, though.
- This Isn't What You Think It Is Ray Toler 4:02
I started working through synths and sounds until the bass line synth inspired something. I didn’t yet know what, but it was a good direction. Adding the initial beat locked things in and I was heading into synth pop territory. A quick note about the bass – it’s coming from AAS Chromaphone, which I a physical modeling synth. It’s uber-sharp, but despite being a digital being manages to capture the same kind of analog feel from early synth-pop, which absolutely steered the direction of the track.
I came up with the verse and chorus bass patterns first, then wrote the first verse. Feeling like it was going straight into pop territory, I messed around with the song structure before I even had the song, just getting the music to feel right. I started writing the second verse and was happy with how things were taking shape, but…
What Does It All Mean???
I’ve mentioned many times that I now rarely say what I think a song is about, because it limits what you might think the song is about. And once these things are released into the wild, there’s no “wrong” interpretation. With time, I often find that what I’ve written has multiple possible meanings, even to me.
I also have realized over the last ten years that I’m not as subtle and cagey as I think I am, and that what I think are cleverly veiled references are really closer to that “hit people over the head with a message-hammer” thing that absolutely bugs the ever-living-crap out of me about so many movies that have been made this century. 2This is frustrating. There are a lot of movies that I would normally enjoy immensely, but because the director is so busy trying to shove an agenda down my throat it diminishes everything else that would have made it cool. Ready Player One, I’m looking at you. People even more cynical than me have told me that it’s because younger generations don’t have the ability or attention span to read subtext. I don’t think it’s an intelligence thing, but the attention span… maybe. When I read the first and second verses, it started sounding like I was talking about climate change or political shifts, or a revolution, or something, none of which were consciously being done.
And there, ladies and gentlemen, is the entire origin of both the chorus and the title. This isn’t what you think it is. So what is it about? I’m not telling. I’m not really even sure I know. That’s another trick that Song-A-Day has taught me: be vague, be mysterious. This isn’t always possible, but I have a couple of songs where I was really just putting words and images together with no real intent or connection, but that people have attached very strong meanings to, even though they aren’t there. Well, they’re not intentionally there. Music as Rorschach test.
It’s Good Like This
As I was finishing the song structure and lyrics, Mary came in and I played it for her and sang what I thought the melody would be. In her mind, it was finished. Nothing else needed. Just a bass synth and one drum pattern. Now, this would be a perfectly legitimate thing to post to the Song-A-Day site, but I just can’t do it. Maybe with the lack of time this year I’ll actually get to that point, but I can’t come out of the gate with a sketch.
And yet, the production in this really isn’t too over the top. I do the normal pop-production craft things,3More instruments in the chorus, bring in or drop out at least two things at a time, provide some variety between repeated sections, etc. but it’s really not too involved. I probably spent too much time finessing some of the bits here and there, but because it was so obviously inspired by early synth pop, particularly Depeche Mode,4I tried to figure out which DM song I was blatantly stealing all day long. I was doing my best to keep things simple. I have unlimited instruments and tracks at my disposal, but if you listen to those synthpop records from the early 80s, they’re quite sparse. Synths were incredibly expensive, as was studio time. On top of that, most studios topped out at 8 or 16 tracks, maybe 24 if you had a label deal. But that was for everything. For reference, this piece has seven instrument tracks, five vocal, and thirteen for the drums (but they’d be grouped if I were doing this back in the day, so call it 4 to 6 if I had to be constrained). So it could conceivably fit on a 16 track recorder if I needed it to. It doesn’t really matter, but it’s an interesting constraint to think about when, as is often the case, I find things getting overly dense.
I’m happy with the end result. I’m not sure it’s really a standout track, but it’s fine. I like listening to it and singing along with it. It’s maybe a few keys too low (I write in C more often than anything else because I’m a keyboardist, though E is probably a better key for my vocal range), but it’s fine as it is. No time to waste. On to the next one!
Lyrics
The water’s flowing down to clean the slate
You think that there’s still time but it’s too late
I tried to tell you again and again and again
But you think you know better
This isn’t what you think it is
And you aren’t who you thought you’d be
And nobody can save you
Nobody can save you
Not you, not me
The fire’s coming down to purify
The ones who listen to the ones who lie
I tried to tell you again and again and again
But you think you know better
You swear you know better
This isn’t what you think it is
And you aren’t who you thought you’d be
This isn’t what you think it is
And you’ll pay for what they said was free
This isn’t what you think it is
And you aren’t who you thought you’d be
This isn’t what you think it is
And you’ll never appreciate the absurdity
And nobody can save you
Nobody can save you
Nobody can save you
Nobody can save you
Not you, not me
Copyright © Ray E. Toler, Jr. All rights reserved.
www.raytoler.com
Colophon
Instruments & Samples
Chromaphone, Diva, Omnisphere, Hive2, XO
Effects, Mixing, & Mastering
FabFilter Pro-Q, Pro-C, Pro-L, Gullfoss, H3000 Factory, Valhalla VintageVerb and Delay, PanMan
Notes
- 1I’m already short on time this month, so I don’t want to commit to this, but I think it might be interesting to also post my abandoned things. I have to think about the best way to do that, though.
- 2This is frustrating. There are a lot of movies that I would normally enjoy immensely, but because the director is so busy trying to shove an agenda down my throat it diminishes everything else that would have made it cool. Ready Player One, I’m looking at you. People even more cynical than me have told me that it’s because younger generations don’t have the ability or attention span to read subtext. I don’t think it’s an intelligence thing, but the attention span… maybe.
- 3More instruments in the chorus, bring in or drop out at least two things at a time, provide some variety between repeated sections, etc.
- 4I tried to figure out which DM song I was blatantly stealing all day long.