New Shoes

One night when I was about twenty I dreamed about looking into a mirror and seeing my father's face staring back. It freaked me out, deeply, because I had made a conscious effort not to be like him. So this is a song about that.

A bit of blah about this, cos it's a bit odd. I had the verse melody hanging around for ever in my riff file, labelled 'chromatic pop', and I loved it but didn't know what to do with it. The only lyric I had was 'new shoes and a new direction', which again I loved, but I had no idea what it meant.

Then I started working on Major Dundee's 'It Gets Better' chorus, and the bridge I came up with took on a life of its own. One day I played it with my chromatic pop tune and the two things glommed together so hard I couldn't separate them.

The structure is weird, ABCAB sort of, verse-chorus-bridge-verse-chorus, and because of the modulation from E to G, it hits the highs and the lows of my vocal range, so this is kind of a rough vocal, since I'm still trying to figure out how to sing it.

Production-wise I went full 70s, since it felt like it wanted to be powerpop, and that A/B->B7 chord change at teh end of the chorus screamed 70s. I tried a much more restrained acoustic version but it didn't want to stay like that.

I think this is sort of finished but I could imagine putting another verse in before the bridge, if I could think of one.

Tech blabla:
Drums: Abbey Road Sixties Drummer
Organ: NI Vintage Keys C3
Piano: Tonehammer Emotional Piano (how I love this!)
Rhythm guitars are my Jazzmaster, lead is the Hagstrom, all through Scuffham S-Gear.

• play
• pause
• min volume
• max volume

posted by unSane (4 comments total)

Last night you dreamt about a mirror
And saw your father staring back at you
Same name, same eyes, same shoes
Well, don't you know that time's a fire, burning higher?

You got a lot of money but you just can't buy the time
Yesterday was sunny but it's getting colder
Days are getting short and you're getting older
You'd pay the price but you just can't buy the time

Year after year spending summer in the city
Staring out the window at the sun and the wind and the rain
You used to think the neon lights were pretty
But you'll never get those summers back again

New shoes and a new direction
It ain't enough but it's a start and that's all you need
So take a look at your reflection
And tell the mirror the clock is ticking, but you're still ticking

Well, you got a lot of money but you just can't buy the time
Yesterday was sunny but it's getting colder
Days are getting short and you're getting older
You'd pay the price but you just can't buy the time
You'd pay the price but you just can't buy the time

posted by unSane at 6:20 PM on November 11, 2012

I like the changes in this one a lot.
For my own interest, I'd love to hear this way simplified; like you and another person in a room with one mic.
posted by chococat at 6:06 PM on November 14, 2012

That's kind of how it started out, Choco. Just piano and acoustic and two voices (both mine). If I get a mo I'll try to lay it down like that. It gets tricky because of the slightly weird key change -- I made the guys in the band laugh by demonstrating how to play it by capo-ing at the 2nd fret and then deftly ripping off the capo when it modulates.
posted by unSane at 6:24 PM on November 14, 2012

not very deftly actually
posted by unSane at 6:28 PM on November 14, 2012 [1 favorite]