Comments on: Don't Ask, Don't Tell

Don't Ask, Don't Tell

NemesisVex — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 13:55:53 -0800

The actual title of this song is 「聞いてはいけない、言ってはいけない」, which is pronounced "Kiite wa Ikenai, Itte wa Ikenai". I probably ought to be more out than I am, but I like seeing the reaction of people who don't suspect when I do come out. (Doesn't work on other gay men, though.)

Like "光速/Kousoku", this song is part of a set in which I wrote the lyrics first and titled the songs in Japanese. I noticed the RSS feed doesn't take too kindly to Asian characters in the title, so I'm using English. By the way, "casually" is a very hard word to sing.

By: BrnP84

BrnP84 — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 15:12:09 -0800

Are you a native Japanese speaker? I couldn't hear any accent, even on the "casually". Good song, it was well produced and had a catchy riff.

By: platinum

platinum — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 16:12:54 -0800

Love the feel of the song, especially the jangly guitars. One suggestion I might have (if you're looking for suggestions) it to give the chorus a little more lift, I could really hear this soar if you play around with that vocal line. Nice overall though, I was definitely nodding my head and singing along.

By: danb

danb — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 20:51:17 -0800

Very well done! I like this a lot. One question: how do you feel about guitar solos? I found myself wanting one towards the end of the song, maybe before the last chorus -- or at least some fills to break up the chord-strumming interludes. Just an idea.

(For the benefit of other curious souls, here's NemesisVex's explanation for the titling: "I like how Japanese artists title their songs in English, even though they're singing in Japanese. So I decided to title my songs in Japanese, even though I'm singing in English.")

By: BrnP84

BrnP84 — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 09:01:20 -0800

Oh wow I feel stupid, I just complemented a native English speaker on how good his English accent was....

By: arcanecrowbar

arcanecrowbar — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 11:25:43 -0800

Some nice guitar tones here, especially the first electric that starts the song.

By: NemesisVex

NemesisVex — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 12:00:32 -0800

Oddly enough, flapjax at midnite says my Japanese is pretty decent.

I should also probably come out of the closet further and say the guitar parts were all provided by Reason with somewhat meticulous programming in Cakewalk SONAR. A guitar solo would work really well toward the end, actually. I would just need to program it.

I know enough guitar to strum the chords I want to hear, but I'm not enough of a player to record an actual guitar track.

By: not_on_display

not_on_display — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 23:41:51 -0800

I would never have suspected... that those were fake guitars! Nice and jangly and poppy.

By: Astro Zombie

Astro Zombie — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 09:10:10 -0800

This has such a big, great sound.

By: chococat

chococat — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 18:48:18 -0800

I like this so much; really a great song.
And the sound you got is reminding me of about 10 different people but I can't put my finger on one, which is always a great sign.
I appreciate that you did (and why you did), but I almost think it would have been kind of cool to not mention the backstory/meaning of the song...since that's sort of the crux of the whole song, no?
Regardless, great job. I really enjoyed it.