So I wrote this song probably in 1996 or 1997, in my living room. I recall coming up with the chord progression while sitting on my couch, my bong on the coffee table, skipping class from college. The first time I recorded it was with planet zorn, tho I played it for many years prior to this recording with several bands.
The lyrics are a play on rhyming schemes. I wanted to have an artificial AAAAA BBBBB CCCCC rhyme scheme, where for each verse, there is only one repeating rhyme. The subject is a general paranoia song about fear of the Chinese and their nuclear missiles, their suppression of the Falun Gong, and their menacing of Taiwan. Next I move to the police and their fun practices with mace and smashing faces. Then I move on to the hypocrisy of America’s obsession with fame and giving passes to famous and/or powerful people.
The chorus was written as a separate song, which I cut up and inserted into the middle of this song. The song that the chorus comes from was a silly tuning song that was literally following the progression of the strings, which we played so everyone could tune without the normal choatic, boring tuning that most people do. The lyrics in the chorus refer to how hard it will be for us to get to the ideal, an impossibility.
I have played many, many roles in bands throughout my ‘career’: Keyboardist in my first band, and from there, bass player, singer/bass player, guitarist, singer/guitarist, singer, singer/keyboardist. I’ve played drums, as well as singer/drummer. One time I was a singer/guitarist/bassist, but we won’t get into that.
In this first track, it’s all guitars. I don’t like the production, but that is merely amateur work - and who plays the guitar solo? me, that’s who:
The next recording is from a live show:
You can hear me talking like the fool I normally am on stage at the beginning.
And finally, the latest version, recorded with a beautiful Wurlitzer organ for the main track:
This last track is definitely my favorite version. The third time is a charm, as they say.
So I formed a band called Solar X (yes, I have abysmal taste in band names. so sue me. you come up with a good band name), and we had a female singer, who goes by the name of Rola, a 19 year old Lebanese (I think) girl with a really nice voice. The recording was made out at the bassist’s, (Brandon Simpson) house, which was out in the Hill Country southwest of Austin, recorded and produced by yours truly. Which would explain the terrible production quality. I learned not to produce my own music with this experience. I still like the way the song turned out, nonetheless. Chris McNelis, guitar, me, keys and backing vocals.
A while ago, we posted our album on the internets in many various places. One of these places is Jamendo.com
Yes, it does sound stupid, doesn’t it. But it’s true. At least in a slightly warped sense (do you detect a twinge of jealousy? cause it can’t be that hard to see!).