31

52:31 by ChristianLeBlanc

Wow! First and foremost, thanks to Gary Flanagan for lending me his vocals this week!

This song started with a bass line, then the drums. The lyrics came to me all in one go last Sunday evening towards the end of a studying session (even though I had forgotten the tune by that point). I recorded a set of vocals that night to remind me how I wanted it to sound.

Monday morning before work, I made an mp3 of what I had and emailed it to Gary, with my request. I had his vocals by Tuesday morning, so I added the other musical elements you hear, and re-recorded my vocals (the originals are doubling the "these are the losers" bit).

My cousin had just gotten me to listen to some Crucifucks, so Doc Dart was kind of influencing my delivery. My cousin would probably cringe to know that :)

The lyrics themselves stem from a conversation I had with Corey, and touches on the potential social awkwardness of lyric-writing - the fine line between catharsis and obsessiveness. Some bands can get away with it, some can't.

Now, this example doesn't quite illustrate what I'm getting at, but it's close enough for now. Take Blue October. "She's My Ride Home" uses violent imagery in a poetic, beautiful way. "The End," on the other hand, leaves you with a very different feeling. If you think the song works, you might feel disturbed. Me, I'm taken too far outside the song, distracted by thoughts of "wow, this guy's pathetic, and probably watches Pulp Fiction and Natural Born Killers way too much. Maybe he's dangerous to himself, but I think he needs to get a life."

From the same conversation, I was also trying to reduce the number of times I use words like 'I, me, my, mine, and you' in my songs for the next little while.

So anyway, I kinda like how this one turned out, which is why I finished it up a few days early :) (plus, that frees up my weekend nicely!)

(Also worth noting: while the delivery and lyrics make the 'speaker' sound a little bitter and jealous, my intention when I sat down to write was to be sincere. The song had other ideas, I guss :)

"I respect that other bands
can sing of murder, hate and dark
and make it sound all fantasy,
cool pretend and future art.
They mix it with a flippancy,
humourous and self-aware
forcing listeners to know
the artists don't sincerely care

These are the cool kids.
These kids have friends.
They're not obsessed, they're just
playing pretend.
Their prozak's a placebo
and it goes down so nice
I bought their single twice.

But then there's that band that just
frets in the corner.
Their sickness, unfiltered,
all too-obvious warning
They think noone's watching
want so much attention
We don't like to hear
it's just awkward to mention

These are the losers
They have less friends.
Always obsessed, they just cannot pretend.
Their prozak's not working
But goes down so nice.
I listened to their download twice.

These are the cool kids.
These kids have friends.
They're not obsessed, they're just
playing pretend.
Their prozak's a placebo
and it goes down so nice
I bought their single twice."