52 Week Song Cycle #49
In Repair (c) 2010 Mattroi Berger
This week I wanted to finally get around to creating that wall of rock guitars - I’ve been playing around with the distortion settings on my pedals and amp to see what I can get. I used to think that fuzz petals sounded a bit to metallic, that they lacked the warmth I wanted in the tone. A few years back I stumbled across the Blues Driver and now I don’t use anything else.
Once I had my wall up, though, there weren’t many other places to go sonically, so I used another sound I’ve been meaning to try out for a while - that wailing two-note drone thing David Bowie has in Heroes (and that LCD Soundsystem cops pretty amazingly in All I Want). It has a really epic, haunting feel, and I think it adds well to the hook and choruses here.
I was about 2/3rds of the way through the lyrics (which, at one very confused point, concerned vampires) before I actually realized what I wanted to do. I wanted to tell a story that sounds very surely one way all the way through but twists at the end to present the teller in a different light. Pretty standard fare for better lyricists, I’m sure, but the words are always the hardest part for me. I’m actually kind of looking forward to the end of the weekly demands of the Song Cycle, when I can work on a lyric for as long as (or longer than) I did this one.
Music and lyrics by Mattroi
***
And in the dark I’m a watch the lights a go a crisscross slowly
I get a ghost a breath and I watch it bleed
And in my head is a single song playing sideways, holy
God, it’s an old, old game and you’re a young, young thing
All right! Never come in silence!
All right! Never come in fear!
You got a way with words like a hammer has a way with windows
You got a smile that’s a part time auctioneer
You got a way to your walk that I swear to God can injure
I got a call from your friend; he was very clear
All right! Never come in silence!
All right! Never come in fear!
All right! Never come in kindness!
All right! Never come in here!
I’m in repair, I
I haunt the stairs and I
Wait for you
And in the dark I’m a watch the lights a go a crisscross slowly
You get a ghost a breath and we watch it bleed
You got a look to say you think this is a bad thing, mostly
But in the end, we do the same bad thing
All right! Never come in silence!
All right! Never come in fear!
All right! Never come in kindness!
All right! Never come in here!
I’m in repair, I
I’ll be your alibi
I’m in repair, I
I haunt the stairs and I
Wait for you
Gonna wait for you
