Tagged: mac

March 29, 2011

Every Song Tells A Story: Something New

The Story

I work from home most Wednesdays, at least at the time of this writing. I also use those days as music days, where I can work on my original material. I have my work computer dialed in to my left and my Mac all set up with the interface on my right. So when I’m taking breaks or in between things for work, I just roll my chair over and record a track or something. Wednesdays are usually great days for getting work done in both cases. There are few distractions. I can knock out a lot of my work (for my day job) in half the time I normally would. I can also get a lot of music written or recorded.

As far as the music goes, those Wednesdays are spent in different ways depending on my mood. Sometimes, I won’t feel motivated to do anything at all. Sometimes I’ll work on four songs. Sometimes I’ll experiment. Sometimes I’ll just record a vocal track. Sometimes I’ll just mix things. It’s all quite random. This song was written while experimenting.

The theme of the song is fairly obvious so there’s not much to explain. When you’ve been in a relationship for a long time, sometimes you have to try something new or something different to keep things interesting. Do something crazy. Do something you’d normally never do. Get in the car and drive somewhere without a plan. Get out of the familiar and into the unknown. Change some routines. Make life a little interesting. It’s a simple notion that can make a big difference, even if for a day.

It could be something as simple as trying a new restaurant or something as drastic as going hiking in a foreign country (if that’s something you don’t normally do). It really depends on the people involved. Trying something you’ve never done before is almost always the way to go. If you’ve never been on a roller coaster, give it a shot. Try switching sides of the bed, maybe. Get a pet. The list is endless.

That’s really all I’m trying to convey in the song. When you’re bored and sick of the same routines day after day, try something new.

The Recording

The song “Something New” was written completely by accident on one of my “experimenting” days. Even the title was a bit of an accident, as you’ll see.

One random Wednesday I decided that I was going to experiment with loops. I was only using them as stand-ins at that point. Actually, I was using them as faux click tracks for recording drums. Since then, I’ve used a few here and there, but sparingly. This time, I wanted to just sit down and experiment with some drum loops and see what happened. Maybe I’d come across something I could use down the road. Who knows?

While paging through the plethora of loops, I came across this fairly straight beat that caught my ear. The kick was pretty heavy on the one and three, yet it was complimented by a nice rim-shot on the two and four. I liked that contrast. It didn’t have that huge accompanying snare hit I was expecting. I made a track in a new project and stretched that loop out to eternity.

Keep in mind that I was not composing or even thinking about writing a song. I was simply going through a sort of musical “stream of consciousness” exercise. I was taking paint and throwing it onto a blank canvas to “see what stuck”.

Around this time I thought that I should probably save the file. We’ve all lost files to power outages or disc errors from time to time, haven’t we? Saving often is always a good thing with computers. I needed a name so I called it SomethingNew, because it was something new I was working on. For all I knew at that time, it would have ended up in the trash later that day.

Enter the clavinet. I’ve always been a big fan of “the clav”. When I think of clav, I immediately think of Stevie Wonder who really mastered the way to play that thing like no other. I also think of Christine McVie and the way she played left-hand clav on Fleetwood Mac’s “You Make Loving Fun”. What a great sound. Of course there are tons of other great records that make use of the clav, from Led Zeppelin (“Trampled Underfoot”, etc.) to The Band (“Up on Cripple Creek”) to Sly Stone, Pink Floyd, and prog-rock bands like Yes to name a few.

So of course, while rolling through the keyboard sounds I had to stop on the clavinet sample. I was hitting octaves on the low D notes and stumbled upon the rhythm you can hear in the beginning of the finished song. I tracked it and stretched the loop out as I did with the drum loop. Now things were getting interesting.

Flipping through the bass loops, I came across something that sounded deep and fat and started tapping away on the midi controller. I wasn’t thinking about key or progression. I wasn’t composing. I was just experimenting, remember? Within five minutes, however, the bass line was born, tracked, and looped across the rest of the song.

It was at this point that I realized something was happening but I wasn’t quite sure yet. Did I have something that might make good background music in an elevator or did I have the makings of a new song? It wasn’t clear yet, but I kept going because I had a great little groove going on. It sounded good to my ears because it was simple (drums, bass, & clav) but yet it sounded fat enough to work.

I knew that if it was to become a song it needed some variation, and for that I turned to the piano since I was already working on the midi controller. Click a few buttons and you’re all set. The catch is that I’m not a good piano player. I don’t just sit and play piano effortlessly. I knew that I wanted something different, though. So I whipped out my handy piano chord book (much to my musician friends’ chagrin) and started experimenting some more.

If this was going to morph into a song, here would be the big test. I had two short-term goals. One was to put something over the existing groove. The other was to come up with a new part that would add some kind of variation. I had no idea what either might be, but I was in some kind of musical zone, so off I went.

I already had the D octaves on the clav tracked so I naturally looked to the pages in my chord book that listed the different D variations. This took a little while because there were two things I had to think about: Rhythm and Chord Progression. In the end, only three chords ended up being used but I had no way of knowing that at the time. I was looking at yet another blank canvas and trying all sorts of things.

I started playing different D variations/inversions to hear how they sounded against the groove that I kept on a constant loop. I didn’t want to be boring and just slap a plain old D major in there. I wanted something a little more fun and full. Major 7ths are beautiful chords to my ears but I tend to use them a lot and try to save them for when I really need them. At some point I placed a D11 before a D9 and noticed that while the chords were very similar, I could still tell them apart even with a D hammering away on the bottom.

The D11 that I used consists of G-A-C-E (with a D in the bass). The D9 that I used is the exact same thing but with an F# instead of a G – and what a difference that F# makes! This whole thing intrigued me so much that I had to keep it. The fact that one note in all that mess really made the difference was key to me. I loved it.

I still had the problem of variation to solve, though. For that, I went the boring route and moved up to the IV (Gm). For color I hammered in a quick F to G thing (one finger) at the beginning of the G minor chord just to give the illusion of movement but the solution to the variation problem was, in essence, just a G minor chord banging away in a Latin style, rhythmically. I altered the bass line beneath it to match but left the drum pattern pretty much intact.

Something just worked there and it was at that point that I knew I had crossed the line from experiment to song. It was funky, yet jazzy. It was simple, yet groovy. But how was I going to finish this thing?

The file name I was using stuck in my head and while I was composing I was humming vocal melodies in my head and making up words on the fly. Some were nonsensical but others seemed to work. I used the words “Something New” in there and began to build lyrics around them, putting them down in a text file as I went on writing the music.

I had a pretty good thing going. I knew I could put a jazzy piano solo in there somewhere over that groove so that was no problem. I felt the song needed a bridge of some sort though. Even with the short Gm variation, it wasn’t enough to keep the song from being too boring. It needed a good third quarter after halftime. What I didn’t want to do was keep the same groove going so I went back to the drum loops to try out some other things.

I found this funky part that I thought complimented yet contrasted the rest of the song and went with it. I didn’t want to dwell too long in drum loop city. The part I chose seemed great, so I was happy. I threw it in the timeline where I thought it would fit best. I then added some bass that kept the pocket tight and solid. If you listen closely during this bridge, you’ll also hear some triangle action. To lead back into the main groove, I added a drum fill that was a loop but sounded a lot like something I would do on drums.

At that point, the song was pretty much set up and all of the main tracks were done except the piano solo, vocals and guitar. I will say that I was VERY tempted to not have any guitar at all on the track. I liked the way the song sounded as it was and was not hearing any guitar in my head at all. I decided to plug the telecaster in and see what happened, though. I found a sound that seemed to fit and just let the song loop for a while. I kept noodling but soon realized that overplaying on this track was not going to work. It needed simple accents and hits and that’s what I ended up doing. I went high up the neck for the funk factor and it seemed to work. I left well-enough alone.

I did want a guitar solo over the bridge part though because it was so different from the main groove. If there was going to be any strong guitar in the song, that was the spot for it. I threw on some distortion and made it work. Then I went back and added a very long piano solo which came before the guitar solo. I enjoyed very much but I knew it was way too long. One of the joys of digital editing is the ability to pull measures out of a song and have it all just fit back together in seconds. I pulled out some of the piano solo (mostly the stuff in the middle that wandered a bit) and gave it another listen. The length was much better. I re-recorded a piece at the end of the solo with some high triplets to make a nice segue into the guitar solo groove and that was that.

Then it was lyric time. This was odd for me because many times I have the lyrics all finished before this point. I already had a text file open and in progress. The words just flowed from there and all came together. Looking back, it’s funny how the file name became the song title and a whole theme of spicing up a relationship came about. It just fell together and made sense in some weird, cosmic way. I love when that happens.

In any case, the vocals were simple and easy to sing because they’re very talky, for lack of a better term. It was almost like talking instead of singing. When we play it live, the band might come up with some fun backing vocals if they choose, but on the recording it’s just one voice. Again, the simplicity of the song really made it work for me. I could have filled it up with a lot of “Ooooohs and Ahhhhhs” but decided not to. I went with what felt right to me at the time.

“Something New” was actually an experiment that turned into a song, and one that I admire a lot. I learned a lot in the process and had a fun time putting it all together. Starting the day with a blank slate and ending it with a full song a few hours later is a great feeling that doesn’t happen too often in our busy lives. I’ll always have fond memories of writing it.

Lyrics

Baby baby we’ve been together
Baby baby a long long time
Going through the motions just ain’t doing it no more
We need a little excitement tonight

Baby don’t you think it’s time that we try something new
Don’t you think it’s time for something that we never do
We gotta find a way to make it work for me and you
Don’t you think it’s time for something new

Let’s get the car and drive until the morning light
Let our thoughts take us away
Feels a bit unnatural – like going back in time
When you feel that freedom – you’ll wanna stay

Don’t you think it’s time for something new

Baby baby we’ve been together
Baby baby a long long time
I know I’ll go crazy if we don’t bury this routine
We need a little something else tonight

Don’t you think it’s time for something new
Something new…

Lou's News / Music

January 3, 2011

Every Song Tells A Story: There You Are

The Story

This song was a very interesting one for me in that it wasn’t written in the usual way. I wrote it with my friend Doug Brehm one night. Doug and I usually hang out together on random Friday nights to either watch a flick or play some video games and drink a few beers. I’ve known Doug since high school and while he’s always a bit timid about his playing, he’s actually quite melodic and has developed his own little style of playing based on folks like Andy Summers of The Police and The Edge of U2.

One Friday night I was home noodling with a chord/riff when he called to see if I wanted to hang out. I asked him if perhaps he’d like to have a songwriting session instead of the usual movie watching session or a night of virtual zombie/alien killing. He seemed up for it, so I packed up my guitar, bass, and Macbook Pro and traveled up to his place.

Everything we did that night over a couple of beers was very productive. We sat there and wrote just about the whole song except for the lyrics which I wrote a couple of days later. It was a great night of bouncing ideas back and forth and seeing what stuck. I really enjoy collaborative songwriting and while I always have the offer out there, people rarely take me up on it. You would think that in the digital age this would be quite common but songwriters are fickle souls and sometimes don’t like to collaborate for whatever reason. What happened in Doug’s basement was a great example of two people just creating something from nothing in a positive and honest way.

Like I said, I wrote the lyrics a few days after we wrote the song. The intention was to keep the subject of the song ambiguous so the listener could make it about someone of their own choice. At first listen, you might suspect it’s a love song about a girl, as many songs are. If that works for you, that’s great and that’s what it’s about for you. I specifically left gender out so that if the listener was a female, she could sing along with the same emotion as a male singing to a female. I’ve always found it awkward singing songs by female artists and having to switch the gender around. Sometimes it works well, other times not.

For me, however, this song is about God. The lyrics leave it open, which is nice, but if you really look at the words, I’m singing about God: Every time I need somebody/When my friends leave me stranded/When I feel like I can’t make it/Every time I think I’m losing you.

People have very strong beliefs about religion and sometimes have trouble separating it from spirituality. I’m more spiritual than religious. I believe there is a God. Others don’t. Who’s right? We don’t know. It all comes down to faith. I didn’t really set out to write a song about God – it just happened. I don’t fight inspiration.

So in the end, this song wound up being quite poignant and serious for me. I write lots of fun songs but I enjoy serious songs as well and this one ended up being one of my favorites. It started as a joint writing session with no real direction and ended up being a good song (in my opinion) with a reflective message; something people could personalize and make mean whatever else, should they wish. Not bad!

The Recording

The recording session started out in my friend Doug’s basement. I had this little riff I was noodling around with and that ended up being the intro and main hook of the song. I felt we needed some kind of beat behind it though, in order to kick start the writing process. So we hooked up the Mac to some monitors and I fished around for a drum loop that I thought might work. The one you hear in the finished track is the one I ended up using. I don’t even think I changed it in any way. It was like using a non-programmed drum machine. The beat played over and over until I stopped it. It just worked. I didn’t even add accents or other percussion. It’s a mellow song that didn’t warrant anything other than a laid back beat. I usually like to play my own drums but I got so used to hearing the loop that I just left it alone. It sounded right to me and I’ve learned to not mess with something if it feels and sounds right.

While we did some recording that night together, it was basically just for the purpose of getting the ideas down in the computer so that I had something to go on when I got back home. Doug and I went through some ideas, discarded others and eventually worked out a nice, simple progression that felt good. We packed it up and I went home. I believe I wrote the lyrics the following Monday while at work and then finished up the song that Wednesday. Everything about this song just literally fell into place.

I re-recorded everything except the drum loop. I believe I started with the main acoustic guitar track, just to get some melody in there. The main riff is a fun one for me and reminds me of something a little Sting-ish. It gracefully descends and sounds like it should resolve somewhere else but doesn’t, which adds a little tension. I enjoy that. There are lots of Major 7th chords in there. In fact, the entire bridge is comprised of them. They sound so nice and full.

I remember coming up with the bass line while at Doug’s place. We were both on guitar and at one point I remember thinking, “This is silly. Why are we both on guitar? Let me get the bass out.” So I did that and as Doug played the riff over and over, I starter working in this sort of alien bass line that didn’t really seem to match what was going on with the acoustic. Of course, that intrigued me even more. It’s got that bit of counterpoint that just seemed to work. There are also some fun bass fills in the bridge if you listen closely. They remind me of something Lenny Kravitz would do for some reason.

After adding more guitars and some of the vocals, I had Doug come back over and lay down the guitar solo. I really wanted him to do it because I knew he’d come up with something cool and something totally different than what I would do. I gave him a copy of the work-in-progress track so he could get some ideas. He came down totally prepared with a really nice solo in mind that I absolutely loved. After a few takes, we got it down and the song came that much more alive.

The vocals were pretty simple. The usual light reverb on the verses and choruses did the trick. I added some harmony to the last chorus for effect. I tried to make it a little more powerful so that when it broke down at the end there would be some nice contrast. As for the bridge, I knew I needed something else there so I tried some oohs and ahhs, drenched in reverb. It’s amazing what some ambient vocals can add to a song.

Like I said before, everything just seemed to fall into place. Divine Intervention? Could be. All I know is that I’m quite happy with the final product. I hope you like it.

The Lyrics

I woke up this morning with the sun shining in my eyes
I had a feeling everything was all right
The pain that I had yesterday faded in the night
I can’t bring back the memory now if I tried

For a while I traveled underground and lost the light of day
Never thought that I could make a mistake
Reflections can be so painful if you take them the wrong way
But the mirror is smiling back today

And I wouldn’t be here without you…

Every time I need somebody now – there you are
When my friends leave me stranded – there you are
When I feel like I can’t make it – there you are
Every time I think I’m losing you – there you are

So many people living, breathing in our space and time
No reason anybody should be alone
You can’t call it hanging out when you’re the last one in the room
Say goodbye to the past, you have to let go

And I wouldn’t know it without you…

Every time I need somebody now – there you are
When my friends leave me stranded – there you are
When I feel like I can’t make it – there you are
Every time I think I’m losing you – there you are

Lou's News / Music

June 17, 2010

Every Song Tells A Story: This May Be Something

The Story

This song is a very important one for me, but not because of its content or its meaning. It’s important to me because of what it represents, or represented at the time it was written. Let me explain.

I can’t say I’ve had too many regrets in life thus far. On a side note, I also think that people who say they have “no regrets” are pretty much full of shit. It’s a device that makes people feel good about themselves or helps them rationalize things, which is cool I guess…but I still think they’re full of shit. You mean to tell me you wouldn’t call for just ONE do-over for that one thing that happened that time…?

Anyway, like I said. I haven’t had too many regrets in life, but the one that always came back and bothered me, and the one I always feel guilty about is the one where I retreated from music for many years. The last band I was in before my little hiatus broke up in the mid 1990’s. After that, I wandered a little bit, did some acoustic gigs, and wrote the occasional song. Nothing felt right or complete.

It was around this time in the mid-late 1990’s that things started to move into high gear as far as life went. Work was not going well, I was training for a new career, I was in the middle of getting married and all that goes along with that, I lost my father and grandfather in the space of two years, I relocated from New Jersey to the Boston area for two years, had a son, moved back to Jersey, bought a house, landed a new job, and so on. In the blink of an eye, more than ten years flew past me before I could even realize what had happened.

Many good things happened during that period but one thing was for certain. I had drifted away from music almost completely. In 2004, I found myself looking for jobs again and having another child; a daughter this time. I contracted here and there and finally landed a solid job in 2006 (where I am presently).

Now, I won’t kid you. I had the bug in my ear every now and then. I kept telling myself I’d fall into a band or do something musical when it came along. Trouble is, nothing ever came along. I was so far removed from the circuit that no one even thought to call me. So at some point in 2006, I looked around and realized that while I was still pretty busy, things had at least settled down a bit. My daughter was two and my son was around seven. I could probably do something musical. The question was: what?

I had always been involved in original music. I thought, however, that putting a cover band together would be pretty easy. I mean, all the songs are written. How hard could it be? It would be a good way for me to ease back into things. Long story short, while there were gigs and many line up changes, the band didn’t last. I did, however, make a few very good friends along the way and had some fun. I got more confident in my abilities and got re-adjusted to performing once again.

During those few years, I also decided to start playing drums again in another local cover band to see if I had any chops left. I found I could still play and I’m still moonlighting in a few bands on drums, which is fun. All those years away from playing did affect my ability, however. That I regret. I can still play well but I can tell that I’m not as good as I used to be. Time and practice…

Back to the song. I had written a few songs in the past with various bands and I had been in a few bands that released material now and then. It occurred to me one day, however, that I had never released my own album: a collection of songs written by me. I guess you’d call it a solo effort? So, while doing my cover band stints, I decided it was high time to just suck it up and start writing songs again. I would noodle here and there on the guitar and see what happened.

One particular night, I remember being quite depressed for some reason that escapes me now. I was on the couch watching something on TV and I looked across the room to where my computer is. Next to it, I keep my old Yamaha acoustic on a stand for noodling purposes. It looked tempting so I went with the vibe and picked it up. I sat in front of the computer and just started strumming a progression that suited my mood. A few minutes later, it dawned on me that I had just written a song. This is something I hadn’t done in years. I opened up a text file and jotted down the chords. At the same time, words started to pop into my head. Ideas were forming. I just rode the wave until it stopped. When it did, I had almost a full song. I just needed a bridge.

I don’t remember the exact inspiration for the song and the lyrics. I remember a friend of mine had recently opened up to me about some personal things she was going through. I remember that I was down in the dumps the night it was written. There’s a reason I’m connecting these two things but other than a subconscious awareness of that connection, I can’t recall the specific inspiration, if there was one. Sometimes when you’re writing, you write a line and then you write a second line which takes you to a third and the next thing you know, you’re a mile away from your original story. These lyrics were something like a stream of consciousness. They just came out. I changed tense or person here and there but that’s about it. The lines just sounded good when I placed them in the chord progression.

So to sum things up, that one night of writing represented my “return” to original music and from there, I just kept going. So that song really means a lot to me. It was the first real song I had written in years and it served as the watershed for what came next, which was a year full of writing and recording. I get a lot of compliments on the song and I’m quite happy with it. It’ll always be a fond memory for me.

The Recording

The song was written fairly quickly, but recording it was quite the ordeal. I was at a disadvantage at the time, because the last time I had ever recorded a song there was no computer involvement. The Internet was still pretty young, actually. I use a PC mostly. It’s a family PC that I usually dominate but we all can use it. I did not have any recording software or input devices, however. I used some gig money (from the drumming I still do on the side) to pick up a Presonus Firebox, which allowed me to plug instruments and/or microphones directly into it. This box carries the signal from the instrument or voice from its source to the computer. I tried using a PC based software package for a while. In the end, I was able to get a version of the song recorded but only after many failed attempts. There were level issues and I lost the entire song (multiple tracks) more than once.

This, of course, drove me to drink…and to the Apple store. I didn’t replace my home PC, but I knew I needed a dedicated media machine. I grabbed a refurbished MacBook Pro and an external drive. I’m using Garageband now, basically because I can’t afford Logic Pro or something better. However, Garageband is surprisingly versatile and suits my needs just fine. Within a few hours of taking it out of the box, I had just about recorded the whole song again.

By the time I got to recording the song on the Mac, I had already played these parts many times so recording it was a breeze. I recorded the drum track first, as I usually try to do. Then I laid down the bass and the other guitar parts. After recording the vocals, I toyed with the notion of adding some backing vocals but I wasn’t feeling it. I was enjoying the visual of a guy singing alone.

The bridge was a funny thing. When I originally penned the lyrics, I had three verses and no bridge. I told myself I’d write something later. While trying to record the PC demo, I realized I had nothing to play for the bridge and just sort of winged it. After a couple of tries, I came up with what’s on the song now. I didn’t have lyrics though. I took the third verse and adapted it to the bridge. Simple.

The mellow guitar solo was nice but I felt it needed to do something other than repeat the phrase so I harmonized it the second time around. That was another first for me, simple as it was. I thought it sounded nice.

So as my first foray into digital recording, I ran into a few bumps but in the end came out with a decent song that put me on a path to many others. The process is so much simpler now than it was 10 or 20 years ago. That, plus the ease of using the Mac have been key for me over the past year. I’ve learned a lot and hope to learn more as time goes on.

The Lyrics

I swore I wouldn’t let it eat me up inside
I said I wouldn’t let it win
But here I am right back where I started
Here I am… again

It’s times like these you’ll tell me it’s gonna be all right
And I might believe you too
But if I did would it just be a lie
Would I be a fool

I’ve been here too many times
I think I know my way around by now

It’s times like these where the darkness seems to break
With a light inside your soul
It’s time like these I run the other way
I make you let me go

I don’t expect you to try and understand
I don’t expect you to try to make me see

This may be something – This may be something, good
This may be something – This may be something, something good

I got all this stuff now
Not sure what to do
I need someone to kick me in the right direction
Kick me right to you

I know you weren’t trying to scare me
You just tried to be a friend

And maybe that’s something – Maybe that’s something, good
Maybe that’s something – Maybe that’s something, something good

Lou's News / Music

April 23, 2010

Every Song Tells A Story: Corporate Robot

The Story

I enjoy humor in music. There are times to be cerebral and there are times to be just plain funny. I like making people laugh with a goofy lyric or idea. This song was meant to be humorous, of course, but underneath it all lies a thinly veiled satirical commentary on corporate America.

The underlying theme in “Corporate Robot” is of conflict. I’ve been working in corporate America now for a long time but I’m not a fan of the corporate mentality that you find in some places. I’ve worked for many companies; some of them big giants and some smaller. In each, I’ve found a different “company culture” statement (written behind closed doors in some HR department) which in most cases totally contradicts what goes on in the hallways and at the water coolers.

Some companies I’ve worked for were so rigid and quiet that there was hardly any communication at all except via computer or at meetings. In other places, there were definitely cliques of people and if you were not in that group, you lost out. At some jobs you didn’t dare talk to someone who had an office unless they came to speak to you (which was rare). At other jobs, the top dogs were the friendliest people, while the mid-level managers were micromanaging, power hungry ego maniacs who basically did nothing all day, much like Lumbergh from Office Space.

In fact, Mike Judge hit the nail so hard on the head with that film that it’s a wonder that film didn’t change the company culture of corporate America as a whole. Like a wake-up call. But I digress.

I’ve also had some good experiences in corporate America but to be honest, it’s just not a fun place. Depending on where you are, you have to basically sit around for a year or two and just observe people before you know who you can talk to and who you can’t. There are walls everywhere.

There’s also this false sense of what they call “professionalism” which apparently means you can’t be human. Everything has to be sterile and controlled. Mechanized. By the book. Robotic.

So after a few years out there, I realized that I don’t really work with people, for the most part. I work with robots. Corporate Robots. At times, I’d notice that as you went up the ladder, this applied more and more. It seems that folks got phonier the higher they climbed the company ladder. They became more clueless and detached somehow, like celebrities who have lived so long in their little bubbles that they can’t be real people anymore when they go out into crowds. They have an alternate sense of reality and can’t adapt.

Now, I’ll admit that the place I’m at now is not really like this. There are definitely walls and some rigid people but for the most part everyone’s cool, all the way up the ladder. The project I’m working on, actually, is going to try to break down some of those walls. So that makes me excited.

Still, all these years in corporate America (especially jobs I had before this one) have affected me and my thinking. I’ve seen some strange stuff and some really odd behavior from people who were paid very well and claimed to be “professionals”.

So that’s basically what this song is about. It’s about having to pay the bills and being stuck in corporate America doing so. Let’s face it. We all have dream jobs and for a high percentage of us, what we’re currently doing is not what we’d like to be doing. I’d sure like to be able to make music all day long, whether it be scoring films, making records, writing for other people, and so on. That’s just not going to happen for me at this point (without being able to dedicate 100% of my time to it), so here I am doing web design and managing portals. It’s decent work but not as fun as playing guitar. Hence the lyric, “I’m stuck in this world.”

The song is also about the creepy people you sometimes see in the hallways that pretend not to see you, the bosses who can never leave their work at the office and enjoy life, and the feeling like you’re slowly becoming one of these people; part of the machine.

Again, it’s meant to be humorous and I got a little serious while writing this. It’s not that I’m feeling all of this at the moment. I actually just liked the term “Corporate Robot” (I had been using it for years) and the rest of the song just sort of flowed from there. Maybe I was having a bad day at work. Who knows.

I tried to throw in some “corporate speak”, as it’s called. Offices have this strange little bit of vernacular that they like to make use of. Phrases like “low hanging fruit” (the goals easiest to achieve in a shorter time) are heard regularly. Of course, I had to throw a Starbucks reference in there. Corporate America basically keeps that place in business and Starbucks itself is pretty much the IBM of coffee.

The bits about the admins and conference rooms are all based on real events that got stuck in my head. People will walk past you in the office, look you in the eye, and not acknowledge you. It’s like they have to have a reason to say hello. Usually that reason is that they need something from you. I could go on all day.

Sometimes you just have to laugh. Or write a song.

The Recording

“Corporate Robot” was actually a fun song to record. I knew from the start that I did not want cymbals on it, outside of hi-hat. I wanted it to be stiff and robotic but I did not want to use a sample of myself or a loop. The song is more about the conflict and trying not to become a robot than about the existing robots themselves. So I wanted the drum track to be stiff and robotic but still somewhat human. Besides, I’m not really that into drum loops. I’d rather just play a drum track than sit there and edit fills for days.

I recorded the drum track, fighting the urge to hit the crashes on the one or wherever my gut would tell me to. I already had the beat in my head so it was easy to bang it out. I just sang along to myself in my head to keep track of where I was. I had a guide chart on a stand to help me.

I added the bass shortly after, which I also had in my head. I wanted the bass to drive the song because I knew there wasn’t going to be much guitar on it. I wanted a funky guitar chord that I would bang on the two with a little variation here and there. I worked out some chord that sounded right and fired up the tele with a nice clean sound. Before I knew it, the basic tracks were done.

It felt like it needed something else, though. Enter the Rhodes. I had purchased a used 1970’s Fender Rhodes some time in the early 1990’s and had been lugging this thing from home to home for years. If you’ve ever seen one of these beautiful monsters, you know they’re big and heavy. I even had a huge road case with wheels for it. Well, at that point in time I had been trying to sell it and had it set up to take a few pictures. It was almost as if it were saying to me, “Hey, I know you don’t want me any more but why not use me one last time?”

So I plugged the thing directly into my Mac and it sounded beautiful. I had fun coming up with some little parts for the song. The bridge is just straight chords. The little solo piece after that really added some life to the song, but not too much life. I even harmonized it a little for fun. Then there’s a different section for the outro based off some E chord. It all just fell together.

Of course, a few days later the Rhodes and the road case were sold and shipped off to Romania. Wild! I used most of the money to pay off some of the Mac and with the rest I picked up a midi controller so I could add things like pianos, horns and strings to anything I wanted to record. One door closes, another opens.

When it came to vocals, I had two ways I could go. I could have sung it normally or robotic. I opted for the latter but I had this issue where I wasn’t sure if people would get the idea. I knew it would sound very “monotonic” and I had hoped that people would know this was on purpose. I didn’t want people to hear it and think, “Does he really sing that poorly?”

So after a good 30 seconds of deliberation (I don’t like wasting time with decisions like that), I just went and sang it like a robot. I even added a little deep robot backing vocal here and there. Tons of fun, really.

“Where’s the plug? Come on pull it,” came out of my subconscious while I was ad-libbing at the end, but I guess it really does sum things up in a way. Unplug the robot. Be human.

Lyrics

Don’t wanna be no corporate robot
Don’t wanna hear about low hanging fruit
Don’t wanna kiss up to a bitchy admin
So I can get the better conference room

Walk past you in the hallway
Look you right in the eye
You look anywhere but my way
Would it kill you to say HI?

Corporate Robot – you’re lifeless and cold
Corporate Robot – you do what you’re told
Corporate Robot – you live by the code
Corporate Robot – it’s old old old

Every day that I’m here
I feel a piece of me slipping away
Replaced by wires and machinery
Transformation is taking place

When you go home to your dependents
Do you know how to be human at all
Do you forget you’re not in the office
Schedule some kid-time to throw around a ball

Got a meeting
Got a voice mail
Got a budget to pass
Got a new hire
Got a new tie
Got a stick up my ass

Got no time
Got no humor
Got no changing moods
Got no patience
Got no guts
Got no idea what I do

The corporate robots line up every day
They get their Starbucks and they pay pay pay
Corporate robots talk in dull corporate speak
Corporate robots think they’re smarter than me

There’s no humanity
There’s no reality
It’s like a B-Movie
It’s killing me

I’m stuck in this world
Gotta find me a corporate girl
Where’s the plug?
Come on pull it