"Not everything goes up in flames...", but some things find a way.
Like a lot of songs I write, the demo for this one consists of two acoustic guitars and nothing more (well, actually, I think a third guitar shows up somewhere, but that’s not the point). I had planned on using that demo to start another “Faust”-like album, but it felt too much like repeating myself, so I stopped. But since reusing older materials is all the rage now, I figured I’d go green and use this track to try out some different production/arrangement things I’ve been looking to take a shot at.
The original intent of this song was to make it sound like sort of a sequel to This Faustian Flesh, so to stay away from that, I laid down some ground rules:
1.) No double bass.
2.) No screaming.
3.) More theremin.
I broke rule 2 a couple of times, but these things happen.
Lyrically, the song is about giving up on your dreams and kind of being okay with it. Well, its a little different than that, but that’s how it started. I’d say that up until about the age of 25, I thought everything I did had this huge impact, be it “Man, this shirt will really freak out them squares!” or “My thoughts on [insert subject here] will blow everyone’s mind!”. The truth of the matter is, no one really gives a fuck about what you’re doing, because they all have things that they’re doing to. And I never thought I’d be okay with that, but I actually kind of enjoy getting older. It’s surprisingly fulfilling to not spend all my time being impossibly angry at everything and expect everyone to give a flying fuck about it. Essentially, this is the 28 year old me talking to the 18 year old me. And I’m sure 38 year old me will eventually look back at this song and think about what a tool I was 10 years ago.
Aside from that, this song mostly exists as an excuse to try out some different pre-amps and guitar configurations. It probably sounds a little schizophrenic because of that, but I still thought it was interesting enough to post here.
As always, click to listen or left click to “Save as…”
“I’ll Tell You When You’re Older”
P.S. I can’t remember if I’ve ever mentioned that I generally include the lyrics with the mp3, but I do. If you go to iTunes and “Get Info” on the song, they should be under the “lyrics” tab. I’m eventually going to work on posting all the lyrics directly to the site, just not right now.
