Every time we write a new song, I'm excited, but this time doubly so.
Up to now most of the guitar parts for our songs have been fairly simple, strummed or chugged chords, power chords, that sort of thing. I've never really had the confidence and dexterity to do much more.
Yesterday I spent all day playing guitar--mostly James Brown-style funk riffs, but at one point I got into a Hendrixy kind of soul groove, and it worked itself into the chords for a new song.
I recorded a short instrumental demo at about 4am, and I did what I usually do when making instrumentals or new songs--I named it something random. In this case, it was "Hoarse angel". I didn't even think about it, just wrote down the first thing that came to mind.
Today I worked on the chords more, just practicing and getting comfortable with them. Reed was picking me up for a movie at 6:00, and about an hour before that a melody and some words came to me.
She's a hoarse angel.
She's got nothing left to say.
She tried her best to help you.
But you just sighed and walked away.
In a flash, there it was, the meaning of the phrase and the whole approach to the song. The melody was tricky for my voice, but I knew we could either transpose it to a key I could sing, or find a good key for Reed's voice.
Reed showed up and I played it to him, and when he started singing it was clear that's how it was meant to be. He just had a beautiful, soulful approach to it. We haven't done anything like soul so he's never had the opportunity to sing like this on any of our songs.
We talked about it and Reed busted out with a new verse that blew me away:
She's a hoarse angel,
She's got the silence in her eyes.
Though you're the one that's bleedin'
She's the only one that cries.
Great stuff. After the movie, Reed wrote some more verses and it was clear he really "got" the song, the soulful blues in the idea really communicates with both of us.
We recorded a quick acoustic demo, and here it is for your listening pleasure. You can hear it in one of two ways:
Download the mp3:
Hoarse angel (demo) (3:47, 3.45 MB)
Or visit our Virb site:
www.virb.com/worldracketeeringsquad/
"Hoarse angel (demo)"is currently the first song on our Virb music player, and the first track on the "Demonstrations" album.
Enjoy!
Jeff
Just a little bump for this one.
Jeff
Well...You know I really love you guys. I'm a big fan you know :wink: Just not doing it for me. I think its a good tune, just ain't right yet :wink: I'm not really sure what I don't really like about it :?:
OK, I listened to it a few more times. The tune and the melody is nice 8) Maybe its the lyric? What is a horse angel? I'm actually starting to like this a lot more :D Hey, I didn't like "Stairway to heaven" the first time :lol:
Thanks, smokindog. Yeah, it's kind of a weird lyric, the first stanza just came to me in a flash after I'd been playing with the chords for a bit. The person being sung to is the kind of person who needs help but just won't ever accept it, and the angel is 'hoarse" from trying to talk to him. That's why "she's got nothing left to say".
I'm pretty happy with it, as an eccentric kind of soul song, but I maybe there's a way it could be made clearer, I dunno.
I originally planned the "She's a hoarse angel" part to be the chorus and was expecting to write verses, but Reed liked that part and made the chorus into the verse, so it's repeated more times than I'd originally thought it might.
Jeff
