Briefcase Blues project

[ryan]

Just thought I'd start this post as a way of updating y'all about my current album-in-progress. This is just for those interested in this kind of thing, and as always, I'm open to whatever feedback you might have about anything I might post under this thread.

First off, I wanted to post an "official tracklist" of sorts. This is something I've had in my head for awhile, but I just realized tonight that I'd never actually written this tracklist down anywhere. So, here's how the tracklist has developed since I first conceived this project last August:

Act I
1. “Briefcase Blues”
2. “Secretary Paper Doll”
3. “The Way It Works”
4. “By the Hour”

Act II
5. “The Machine Always Pays More.”
6. “Flirt”
7. “Broken Down on the B.A.”
8. “Employee of the Week”
9. “The Golden Goose Egg”

Act III
10. “Unplug the Drone.”
11. “Making a Building”

Yeah, it's silly that I've broken the thing into acts. I didn't do that to be pretentious; it's just that this is how the project has formed in my head. I had a fairly diverse set of tunes all either examining or reacting to Corporate America, and in order to make them sound like a cohesive "whole," I ordered them with thematic content in mind, striving to create a satisfying "cinematic" quality to the album. This naturally resulted in three acts, because of the way I tend to think of things.

So, then, Act I is characterized by songs with a strong upbeat quality, and a sense of humor. Most of the pronouns are second or third-person; you, him, her, they. These songs hold Corporate America at a distance, and examine it at arm's length.

Act II moves inside the machine. All the narrators here, and in Act III, are singing about themselves, in the first person. This is the more personal, intimate face of the album; these are songs with a deeper emotional resonance; although there's a sense of humor shown in "The Machine Always Pays More" and "Flirt," that sense of humor has faded by the time we reach "Broken Down on the B.A.," has been replaced with dread and anxiety on "Employee of the Week," and implodes on the narrator in "The Golden Goose Egg."

Act III, then, is a sort of coda. "Unplug the Drone" details, in semi-autobiographical fashion, my surreal experience getting fired from Decision One, and the feelings of worthlessness that circled around inside me at the time. "Making a Building" picks up the pieces, finds new resolve, and declares strength in independance and community.

So, there it is. That's how the project is shaping-up thus far.

[ryan]

Secretary / Paper Doll
updated and revised 8/7/06

I think I'm finally finished with the lyrics for this one. I originally had a rough-draft posted here, but tonight I revised it, and I think these are very close to the final words:

A paperweight
A dress in a chair
That's all I'm doing here, she muses.

The president
The C.E.O.
He run around and the papers blow,

And she
She cut it up
She
She cut it up
She
She cut it.

Fitted and formed,
processed, approved:
The words she says are not hers to choose.

The smile and skirt
who take the call:
Ain't nothing there but a paper doll

And she, she cut it up.
she, she cut it up.
she, she cut it up.
she, she cut it.
letter-size
punched and ruled
copy-white
butcher-spool
And she
She cut it up
She
She cut it up
She She cut it up
She
She cut it.

These lyrics concern an office-secretary who cuts herself to relieve job-related stress. It was inspired, in part, by the film "The Secretary" with Maggie Gyllenhaal and James Spader.

This is a touchy subject to take seriously, but I wanted to take it seriously in this song. To do that, I had to remove any direct reference to the act, and rely instead on the power of suggestion to convey the central image. So therefore, the chorus is, "She cut it up," suggesting that whatever she is cutting is not a part of her. But then, in the verses I compare her to paper, and talk about her being "processed and approved" as if she's a document being passed-around. The chorus lyric, then, creates two superimposed images in my mind: in one, the girl is striking-back at the company by cutting-up documents. In the other, the girl is cutting her leg. And the suggestion here is that these acts are one in the same: She wounds herself because she can't wound the company.

I also think there's a third layer to the chorus-lyric which a kind of slight harmonic resonance: I think "she cut it up" sounds like street-slang to describe a girl who is dancing well. It borrows from the phrase "cut the rug." I think this third meaning indicates that she does her job well; she is as agile as a dancer.

The last chorus, which extends for three repititions, contains a break from the usual chorus lyrics. This lyrics in this break describe different kinds of paper -- but the words themselves are meant to be a deeply-encoded description of the cutting-act.

[ryan]

The Way it Works
Updated and Revised 8/7/06

Here are the lyrics for "The Way It Works." I've had most of these words since around October 2005, but never committed to them because I had yet to find the right words for the post-chorus, and I wasn't happy with the final verse. Originally, I had a rough-draft posted here. I've since revised it, and now, here are what I believe to be the final words, or something very close to them:


You give your money to the man who give it to the man.
He give you what you gotta have, make you a happy man.
Three day go by and it break down, you call another man
who say "Hey man take it easy,

'Cuz that's the way it works -- 'Cuz that's the way it works."

You got a record of the time'a day and money spent.
You write a letter to the office of the president.
You get a letter that ain't seen a human fingerprint
That say, "We're no longer company."

'Cuz that's the way it works -- 'Cuz that's the way it works.

(I been cuttin' the stones, I done my time.
All I wanted was something mine-all-mine
Here to touch and see, earned dime-by-dime,
through bitter season.)

They got you on the bully-bankruptcy installment plan
But ain't no blood-a-comin' from the stone'a empty-hand.
You stop the payment on the check, nobody understand.
They gonna take it all away

'Cuz that's the way it works -- 'Cuz that's the way it works.

(I been cuttin' the stones, I done my time.
All I wanted was something mine-all-mine
Here to touch and see, earned dime-by-dime,
through bitter season.)

You got a job, you in the service of the company.
Some other motherfucker call a-cursin' loud and free.
He got a story like a national emergency.
You cut him off so easy,

'Cuz that's the way it works -- 'Cuz that's the way it works.


With this one, I'm attempting to present a kind of full-circle narrative, wherein the narrator gets ripped-off by a company, has no recourse, and unwittingly allows his anger to fashion him into a tool of the company he works for, wounding others in exactly the same way he was wounded. I think this happens all the time. I can't count the number of times I felt like I was ripping-off a customer at D1 or DirecTV, simply because they felt entitled to something which I could not provide without breaking company policy. Eventually, I got numb to it and started thinking of these people as selfish bastards who weren't entitled to jack-squat. And that's precisely how my company wanted me to feel.

In some cases, these customers had legitimate arguments. I remember one lady who called me at DirecTV, who was incensed that she would have to pay for a service-call because her satellite-dish had stopped functioning. She claimed that the installer had sold her a 5-year all-inclusive warranty for over $200, which would have still been in effect. Knowing that DirecTV doesn't offer such warranties, I spoke to my supervisor. She investigated the lady's account, and discovered that she'd been a Pegasus Satellite subscriber just three years ago. Pegasus had offered 5-year all-inclusive warranties, and this is what the lady had purchased. Unfortunately for the lady on the phone, DirecTV had purchased Pegasus two years ago, and had simply declined to honor any warranties Pegasus had sold their customers. I had to tell the lady that her warranty was no longer valid because the company who sold it to her had gone bankrupt, and we'd purchased that company. She wasn't a happy camper, and there was nothing I could do but listen to her yell in my ear. In many ways, she was the inspiration for "The Way it Works."

Although the pronoun "You" is used throughout the song, I imagine the narrator is singing about his own experience, substituting "You" for "I" as we often do when trying to make others understand how our experience is universal. I'm striving for a kind of "soapbox sermon" effect, but undercutting it with a kind of street-jive that keeps the whole thing from sounding too overbearing.

I'm not sure about the use of the word "motherfucker" in the last verse. I like the way it fits the flow of the surrounding words, and it provides a nifty unexpected rhyme, and it certainly relates the narrator's anger -- but it is not my intent to shock or appall with juvenile expletives. That said, I think cursing can be a powerful tool when used appropriately -- but it has to feel as if the expletive used was the best word to use. I can't decide whether this usage of the word "motherfucker" is good, or whether it's just distracting. If it's distracting, I will take it out.

Alternate take of the last verse:

You got a job, you in the service of the company.
Some other sister brother call a-cursin' loud and free.
Tellin' a story like a national emergency.
You cut 'em off so easy,

I'm not sure which works better, but I gravitate toward the "motherfucker" verse, because I like the irony in how the narrator is cursing as loud-and-free as the caller irritating him. It draws the con-man and the victim together nicely, showing how they're both frustrated, and nicely contributing to the suggestion that they're both victims in a larger scheme. I also like the idea that the narrator belittles the caller's "story" by calling it a "national emergency." The irony is that, in fact, I believe the caller's and narrator's stories are the same, and that there are countless others who also share these experiences. This actually does constitute a national emergency, in my mind -- and it's one that goes ignored until a giant like Enron devours itself from the inside, taking a chunk of our economy with it.

[jtmx1]

Ryan,

I try to give a critical response to all the creative projects that drift past the board, so I thought that I would write something about Poseidon’s Daughter. Ignore anything you find obtuse in here. Overall I dig this tune, and I’ve listened to it for hours, literally.

Here’s what I think works:

1. The song has a real feel. And the music tells a story that complements the words. (I do have a worry about the dominance of the music in the song, see below.)

2. The way you isolate and separate parts continues to amaze me. Your EQ and panning work is just so impressive.

3. I think you have a wonderful voice. I’ve heard people who may have more technical skill, but you use what you have so very well and you aren’t afraid to go to new places with your voice. You are easily the best vocalist I personally know. I don’t know if this is true, but you seem to have put a lot of thought into your vocal sound. Either that or you just came to the table with loads of talent.

4. My favorite instrument in this mix is the bass. It wanders but never gets lost. At times I wish it had perhaps a little more of a deep growl, but I don’t know if it would be possible, given its activity. It is very effective when you have the second bass (on a keyboard?) double a note or two.

5. I like songs about the ocean. The good ones never fail to remind me of the last few lines of Eliot’s Prufrock. That is good ocean talk to me. I also know some silly paeans to optimism that involve the ocean: one about footprints in the sand and another concerning rescuing stranded starfish. Both are loathsome in the extreme. Ocean imagery works best for me when it has something to do with the unfathomable, since it is such a great symbol of downward-seeking transcendence. (Religious people often concentrate more on looking at the sky.) Science tells us, of course, that we come up from below. (The dissolved salt in our blood is the same percentage as in ocean water, etc…) But we can never go back there. So, there is something intimate and recognizable and at the same time foreign and “forever out of reach.” I think you cover all this in the song. (I can’t find your lyrics on the myspace site, but they are pretty clear in the recording.) At first I worried over the boat sinking sequence, but the vision of the lost love seems to require it. So it pays off well enough.

6. I like the organ sound that you used. I also like the way the organ and the rhythm guitar line go together. However, sometimes, the part wanders just a little too much for my taste. It feels like it is not totally controlled. Maybe, that is what you wanted.

Okay, here are some lingering concerns, feel free to ignore ‘em:

1. My biggest concern is about the drum track. I realize that you are playing with time signatures almost right off the bat, but the drum track doesn’t sound like it’s in on the act. It sounds so staggered that it works against the guitar changes, at least in my opinion. Especially during the opening of the song, I would work on making the drumming seem more natural. (Maybe it could indicate the downbeats a little more? Banal, perhaps, but also perhaps necessary in complex passages.)

2. A couple of the rhythm chords land out of tune. This is minor, but they tend to end the phrases where they occur, so their dissonance is amplified.

3. My second greatest concern is likely something you have thought a lot about and have no desire to change—which is why I saved it for last. I think that sometimes the instrumental sections of the song go on too long. And some of them may not even be necessary. My feeling is that these should be trimmed up a bit. Here’s what you’ve got:

0:00-0:46 Intro (46 sec)
1:29-1:51 Interlude after the first chorus (22 sec)
3:17- 4:06 Interlude after the second chorus (49 sec)
4:48-5:00 Quieting down before the second break (12 sec)
6:25-7:14 Outro (49 sec)

That’s about 3 minutes of instrumental music in a pop song. Also, the last ½ of the chorus feels instrumental-ish. So, it feels more like over 4 minutes of the song. During most of this time you are depending on the story elements of the lyric to stay in mind. And I have to say, that they didn’t always for me. Trimming or eliminating some of the instrumental play could give punch to the message of the song, which I take to be a description of the psychological state of wanting something in an unhealthy way. Of course, if you’re firm on the fusion-like exploration of the song, then just ignore this critique.

And that is all. I dig this song a whole bunch. While I’ve been typing this I listened to it six more times. Good work, Ryan.

Jeff

[ryan]

Wow, Jeff, thanks for your analysis. You know, I've been meaning to write a bit about "Poseidon's Daughter" under my "four-track excavations" thread. I already mentioned the song in my first posting there, but I have quite a bit more to say about it.

Since I fully intend on posting something there -- soon -- I'll keep my reply here brief. First off, I just wanted to mention that "Poseidon's Daughter" was a song I recorded back in 2000 on my four-track. It was intended to be a longform psychedelic-rock epic. I envisioned it as a collaboration between Neil Diamond and Billy Corgan, and a various number of classic-rock acts who had made an impression on me over the years. Today when I hear it, I think it contains the same kind of big Technicolor melodrama that Bruce Springsteen captured on his "Born to Run" album -- but I didn't hear that album until years later.

At the point in my life when I conceived this song, I was convinced that my music was not pop. I did not define "pop" in the way I do now; I thought of it as a shallow, radio-friendly kind of music, bereft of real emotion or inspiration. So, although I knew I was working with the basic elements of pop-music, I was intent on subverting their functions. I liked dramatic introductions -- particularly ones that contained a key-change. I liked long verses, and lyrics that allowed for the slow development of a story. I was also keen on the idea of delaying a song's chorus by ending the first verse with a "fake chorus" -- an instrumental passage that apes the actual chorus's progression. Moreover, I was of the mindset that "longer is better" -- although I also knew that longer songs were tightrope-acts, because it's easy to try the listener's patience. It was my goal to write a 7-minute-plus song which "felt" like it was only 3 or 4 minutes long. It had to carry its momentum from beginning to end, and also manage to take the listener to a few distinctly different places.

From a structural standpoint, that's what I was trying to do with "Poseidon's Daughter." From a thematic and emotional standpoint, I wanted it to be humorous, sunny, and bold -- but I also wanted there to be some mysterious and heartfelt undercurrents swirling beneath. I conceived of the chorus, the verse, and all the lyrics in only a night or two. In fact, the lyrics for this song came faster than most lyrics do for me; I think I wrote the initial draft in one sitting, the night after I first came up with the chorus. It took months, however, to flesh-out all the musical ideas that would carry this song, and to figure out how to fit the whole thing on only four tracks.

I won't go into the recording process, since I plan on doing that elsewhere. But I will say this: It took several months, during which I worked on this one song, exclusively. This song was my recording-project. Of course, that's how I worked back then. I'd pick one song and work on it obsessively for months, until I either got sick of it, or until it was finished. With Poseidon's Daughter, the former happened. I'd just finished tracking the vocals, and was beginning to work on the lead-guitar parts, when I suddenly found myself thinking that the song was garbage. "The mix is too busy," I thought. "The keyboard parts pull away from the guitar parts, the bassline doesn't work the way it should, the vocals sound like crap, the lyrics are fruity, and there's no way to save any of it." I abandoned the song, at that point.

In my own defense, it is true that the original four-track master sounds a little weird. The sounds are thin, and don't quite seem to occupy the same space. But when I rediscovered the song last month, I realized that these problems were all things I could fix with a little digital-mixdown TLC. Really, all I did was add some compression and EQ on each of the individual tracks, put some subtle stereo-reverb on the vocal, and add the C4 compressor and a limiter on the mixdown bus. That did the lion's share of the work.

And as far as the lyrics being fruity: Well, that was part of my original intent, and somehow I forgot about that after I'd been working obsessively on the thing for 6 months. Of course they're fruity. They should be. The song wouldn't work if the vocals were too serious, or too tongue-in-cheek. Split the difference between those two, and you arrive at "fruity," I think.

Thanks for your suggestions on improving this song. I took note of them even though I currently have no intention of returning to work on this one; I feel like this recording represents a certain time and place in my life, and I like it the way it is, flaws and all.

[ryan]

I revised and updated the lyrics and postings for "Sectretary Paper Doll" and "The Way It Works" tonight. I'm much happier with the lyrics now.

I also revised the words for "Briefcase Blues" tonight and I like 'em much much better. They no longer sound so... smug. I like 'em enough to get excited about the song again.

[jtmx1]

Ryan,

I checked your myspace page for these new versions but couldn't find them. Am I supposed to be looking here: www.myspace.com/collapsiblefortunes ? (Maybe here: www.collapsiblefortunes.com ?)

Jeff

[ryan]

Sorry, Jeff. I didn't mean to suggest that I'd posted recordings of these songs. When referring to "postings," I meant the lyric-postings on this bulliten board. I'll let you know when I get actual music recorded.