Now that I’ve given away my music for the RPM Challenge to friends and many people have had time to hear it and react, I wanted a chance to explain some of the creative process that went into making each track.  This post will be the fifth and last which will go into some detail on my thoughts during the songwriting process.

Track Nine – Eight, Nine, Ten

I love the little guitar riff in this song.  I’m not afraid to use “lazy” riffs, because I’m just not a very sophisticated guitar player.  My mantra is if it sounds good to me, then I’ll use it.  I’m not interested in impressing anybody with my guitar pyrotechnics.  During the song, its basic chords get dressed up by moving my pointer finger around to give them a nudge towards interestingness.  Otherwise, its music is pretty simple.

The only trick with the guitar part is that I tend to rush and accelerate it pretty badly when I play it repeatedly.  So it’s the only track on the album where I used a click track for both guitar and drums.  It made things a lot easier, but it really does make it feel a little less organic to me.  I tend to push through and build everything as I play it, but I think this one doesn’t have that same bloom to it.

I’m proud of a few of these lyrics.  Name-checking I-65 was specifically pretty cool.  I was envisioning all the hordes of Michigan folks that come through Birmingham on the way to warm weather and the beaches.  Using touch-and-goes as a noun kind of rocks.  I love the idea of someone’s opposition being “like the second floor”.  How do you fight someone ten feet up and made of concrete?  The phrase, “Star light, seems right,” just seems to roll off my tongue.  I also liked how “Don’t lay down” ends up being used in two different ways by the end of the song.  Still, I think this song lacks any obvious vocal hook, which makes it kind of a problem child.

Track Ten – Type A

This is officially the first song I ever wrote and finished.  The first fragment for the album, the first lyrics, and the first thing recorded.  So I was very much still learning.  And then it got buried on the B side of the album with the other dysfunctional children.  But I still like it.

The friend that loaned me his drums told me this one ought to become a travel song.  So that was the genesis kernel, and it kind of did.  Lots of moving around and travel words, especially in the first verse.  I think the music is kind of jam band-y.

I wonder if listeners figure out that the point-of-view is meant to morph from the guy getting pursued by the devil and into the devil himself – probably possessing the narrator at some point during the song.  Then travelling towards his home, possibly to make his wife or someone else close to him bleed (in some ominous way), just like he did to the last guy.  That was my intent anyway.  It got more wicked as I wrote it, for such a happyish sounding melody.  I’m particularly proud of the curious mystery of what exactly happens to the first guy’s wife.  I don’t think the devil would actually kill anyone outright, would he?  And I liked the phrase, “Homicide horrorshow.”

Track Eleven – Including This

This song was the last fragment, the last lyrics, and last recorded.  For some reason, this was the most difficult guitar to come up with ANY melody to.  Seriously.  A total pain.  I can’t explain why.  Sheer agony.  I also sincerely hope it’s not an example of the Sensitive Female Chord Progression.  It’s a song that’s another example of wanting to add in an F major chord before it’s lost in the mists of time.

Because it was the last song written under RPM’s strict time limits, I got kinda tired of my full week of writing words.  But I wrote some.  And I don’t hate them completely, but it’s absolutely another problem child.  It’s maybe the hardest for me to appreciate and enjoy.  I’m not quite satisfied with how it turned out.  I do, however, think it’s an easy choice for the last song on the album.  Last tracks are usually more “personal” somehow, and I think it is.

All that being said, it’s probably the song that’s currently second- or third-most mentioned as being in someone’s list of favorites.  You just never can tell about people and what they’ll like.  Which is another reason to create your own art.  Just put it out there and see what happens.