Two Shadows

"Two shadows on the rise, forging lightning in the sky."

The week before last, when I was attempting to sketch out as many ideas as possible, I had a day when I pulled out my full electric rig. If you've ever seen it, it's the monstrous pedal board and that towering amp set up I used to regularly use from 2001 - 2003. It's really, really, really loud. I came to a series of sketches that were "riff based."

riff - A short rhythmic phrase repeated constantly {a shortened variant of refrain}.

So, I had a handful of songs that had these repeating, heavy guitar lines. I opted to pick the one that would be the most unlike anything else I had done. The one I picked was just two chords played over and over and over again in the same shuffle rhythm. I didn't have any songs with a shuffle feel. This seemed like the right piece to develop.

On the recorder, I mumbled some words. It sounded like I said "Two shadows on the rise, forging lightning in the sky." That seemed like a compelling portrait to develop. I mapped out a structure and began recording.

The lyrics were almost intuitive. I had to come up with quite a few for the verses. These all came from the same page in my journal as "Civil Twilight." To change it up, I made the setting a sunrise rather than a sunset. Conceptually, it's usually a good idea to at least consider having songs that can work as a matched pair. An opposite. You can see this applied all over the Dirty Wake album. "Shut up now" followed by "tell me everything;" "I want to believe in you" answered with "let me die." The sense of presence with "Superhero" coupled with the absence of "Wonderland." A principle you can apply to your writing is this: if an idea works one way, the opposite will most likely work in a similar way.

I love to play the guitar. I love to play fast and I love to play loud. This song seems to fit this need. There are about twelve different guitar solos on this song and I'd put more on there if I could. I love how the solo will play in the key and then play in the minor of the key. When you can do that and do it freely, you know you're on to something. Whether or not it's good...I don't know. You'll definitely have something, though. That's for sure.

The rhythm section on this track was the most challenging. I only had about 12 bars of unique stereo loops from which to construct the drum track. This is where live drums would have really been the better option. The stereo tracks were also played without much energy. I opted to compress the stereo track quite aggressively. This gave it some life. It also took a lot of the dynamics away, but that's the price you pay with compression.

Sometimes, when I'm walking my dog, the sun hits us at the right angle. We look like giants, titans. Our shadows are cast the length of an entire street. I wonder if that's where this image came from.

Also, sometimes when I don't get enough sleep and I get up and go to the gym, some of the things I dreampt of the night before still seem very present. For example, on Wednesday morning, I drempt that anti-freeze was pouring from my dashboard into my car as I was driving. As I drove to the gym, I thought briefly that I saw anti-freeze spew its way out of the AC vents. Didn't happen. I drempt it about five minutes before that, though. The mind can still be partially asleep at sunrise. That's where the verses come from.

Have a great weekend.