The Pink Raincoat

It's really freakin' hard to write a song about someone you weren't in love with.

A really rough sketch of a song I've been working on / struggling with. Posting for reax... there's a lot still needs doing to it but I need to take a break and think about it.

I think the feel will ultimately be Wilco-ish but for now its just electric guitar and vocals. Thinking about trying to play my own drums on this. The timing has been all over the place... it's been fast and slow, with some sections half-speed, but I think this is pretty much the right speed. Lyrics are a bit undercooked here and there but in the right spirit.

As I say, reactions please... no wrong answers.

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posted by unSane (4 comments total)

I heard you found somebody new, somebody who's in love with you
I hope it's true
'Cause I was not the one for you, was only ever passing through
You never knew

CHORUS
And I won't pretend that this is a love song
We ended up bad, and we started out wrong
But after all that we went through
There's still one thing I know is true
That pink raincoat, it sure looked good on you

You dreamed you were the special one
A Marilyn, Napoleon
But those you pinned your hopes upon
Never saw you the same way

You told me things he did to you
They turned you black, they turned you blue
That haunted you, they taunted you
And would not go away

CHORUS

You never wore pink but it suited you
You looked in the mirror, saw someone new, someone who
Could be one of the special ones
A Marilyn, Napoleon, a Joan of Arc, Coeur de Leon
It made you strong

One day you found a photograph I took of her the year before
And on the back the letter that I'd never write to you
I mustered lies, I tried to hide, but we both knew down deep inside
That something there and then had died and gone away.


posted by unSane at 2:28 PM on September 7, 2010

(And now I realize the feel of the verses changes between the first and the rest... I much prefer the melody of the first).
posted by unSane at 2:50 PM on September 7, 2010

Agreed on the first verse melody and phrasing. The later verses feel too much like they're just carrying on the same metric feel as the tail end of chorus, and having a real contrast between the two is definitely stronger.

Basic feel is great. I look forward to hearing what happens when you put together the fuller arrangement. Some drums to drive the dynamic envelope of the whole thing will I think make it a solid down-tempo rocker.
posted by cortex at 8:03 AM on September 8, 2010

Yep, when I changed the verses round to the feel of the first it made a huge difference. The thing that's tripping me up now is that it wants to slow down for the 'pink raincoat' hook but I'm having a hard time getting the feel of that right (and Logic keeps crashing when I mess with the tempo track... grrr).
posted by unSane at 12:17 PM on September 8, 2010