Author: tryingartist

But You Ain’t Right

~ tryingartist ~ Leave a comment

https://soundcloud.com/thetryingartist/but-you-aint-right

‘You think that you can treat me half as bad to what you think,
But you ain’t right, when it’s ok you can stay all day,
And it’s too bad when the sky is dark, and the sun is sad,
And it’s not right.

And in the end we all fall down,
And it doesn’t matter who you are.

Everyone everywhere has a place of mind and a place of touch,
Where they can feel when it’s ok, and when they can pay,
And when the time is right and only on this day,
It’s worth the wait, but it’s not right.

And in the end we all fall down,
And it doesn’t matter who you are.

And the image flickers through the street, ask anyone you meet,
About the old man, who used to sit and pray,
Look at his feet and wait for the next day,
Then they took him away.

And in the end we all fall down,
And it doesn’t matter who you are.

The image flickers through the street,
Ask anyone you meet.
Used to sit and pray,
Before they took him away.’

 

As you may have already gathered, the lyrics to this song make no sense. The first sentence especially just isn’t a sentence. After that, individual lines begin working a bit, at least grammatically, but there simply isn’t a theme.

A brief synopsis of each paragraph:

  1. You think you can treat me bad but you can’t, and it’s shit when the weather is grim.
  2. Everyone dies.
  3. Everyone can find somewhere to think(?) and to pay for sex(?!!!).
  4. Everyone dies.
  5. An old man, maybe homeless, used to pray on the street, but then The System got rid of him.
  6. Just to reiterate: everyone dies.
  7. Just to reiterate: The System.

It must have been one of those where I improvise the lyrics as I write the song and then don’t do much editing afterwards, there’s no other explanation for this. My guess is that it started off as a bland dysfunctional relationship song, then I sung the chorus and decided at that point to change it to a bland description of life and death issues.

I begin an absurd number of lines with ‘and’, which is sort of revealing, it’s like: ‘this thought, AND then this thought, AND what about this thought’.

The combined sound of the guitar strumming and the ride cymbal is nice in the chorus though, eh?

Oh and there’s a surprise jazz ending. Only appropriate that a song with such inconsistent words should switch style for no reason. Look out for one more of these later.

 

Here’s another tune with a similar message:

Nothing In Particular

~ tryingartist ~ Leave a comment

https://soundcloud.com/thetryingartist/nothing-in-particular

I like to give little awards to things in my head. This particular prize is a tough contest with some very strong competitors, but I think ‘Nothing In Particular’ just about wins it: ‘Worst Ending To Any Song I’ve Made’.

There are many Trying Artist songs which feature the messy final mouse click, or the ok-I-give-up collapse of rhythm in all the instruments, but it’s the specific way in which my voice strains out the final four lines – four lines of improbably bad quality – before the instruments stutter and fade, that wins this song the prestigious award.

‘Go ahead and call for backup,
I’m sure they will come running,
Or instead why don’t you shut up
And back away into the corner’

Come on! Come on! I can’t believe I’m hearing these lyrics years later. I imagine different embodiments of me, playing the instruments separately, all cringing with shame when the singer version of me cracks those words out, unable to carry on playing, looking around at each other in disbelief.

Except that clearly didn’t happen. Clearly they were encouraging him.

It’s important to note here that this song, and its lyrical content, does fit within a certain thematic genre of my music as a whole: The Slightly Ironic Arrogant Rebel Figure. There will be a few more of these as the years drag on. The lyrics in these songs stand out because they are so unlike my personality, which is more like a Very Ironic Timidly Arrogant Obedient Citizen. I was a little bit more combative in the old days – I thought I was cool and didn’t like it when other people thought they were cool. However, this never caused me to start fights with people because they talked about their last holiday a bit too much.

 

I remember my Dad showing this song to someone, it might have been my drum teacher. His comment was ‘the guitars are out of tune’. Concise, to the point, succinct, correct.

 

 

 

THE SONG THAT CHANGED THE WORLD

~ tryingartist ~ 1 Comment

https://soundcloud.com/thetryingartist/the-song-that-changed-the-world

Basically, if I’ve put the title in capitals, it’s going to be bad.

Although, to be fair to myself, I think the large letters denote a lack of seriousness in my attitude towards the song, rather than an absurd level of confidence about the song’s impact. And also, come to think of it, is this song worse than all its contemporaries? Absolutely not.

But, ‘THE SONG THAT CHANGED THE WORLD’ is still a bit bad, and if it has changed the world, it is in ways so subtle as to be completely imperceptible, even by its creator, who looks avidly for these things all the time.

It is in fact an extremely significant song for me, being the first song I recorded with two friends who remained in my band until the end of school.

Which is why the guitar and bass playing see a slight improvement, whilst the obnoxiously loud drumming fills are good old fashioned Trying Artist.

This band, with the later addition of a keys player, was a source of happiness for us all, and we went on to achieve great* things**.

*a few
**gigs

I’m struck by how much ‘TSTCTW’ strives and fails to be like this much later piece:

Drum Solo

~ tryingartist ~ Leave a comment

https://soundcloud.com/thetryingartist/drum-solo

I like listening to this a lot. Not because I think the drumming is good. In fact, this is exactly the sort of drumming I hate – ostentatious, messy, as loud and as fast as possible.

I like listening to it because in the audible flurry of flailing limbs I can clearly picture my technique-less, eager 14 year old self. I can either remember the day I recorded this, or the impression of the recording is so strong that I’ve created a memory to accompany it.

In the room at the top of the house, building up a sweat moving from the computer to the drum kit, making sure the recording isn’t peaking, trying to play faster and faster, probably in summer, feeling like I’m drumming better than I ever have done.

The take you hear was almost definitely chosen not because I finally played it right (I clearly didn’t play it right), but because I got so tired I couldn’t really keep smashing those cymbals any longer.

Nevertheless, it was saved, and named Drum Solo, thereby giving it permission to be seen as a sort of portfolio of my drumming capabilities.

As I got older, I started listening to less rock/indie and more disco/soul/electronic music. The drum solo I would record now would be very different- much more syncopated, more repetitive, more restrained, less fun, better.

This is perfect drumming for me now:

VErY RuDE

~ tryingartist ~ Leave a comment

https://soundcloud.com/thetryingartist/very-rude

This is a rap song. There will be three of these, all of a certain calibre.

Needless to say, VErY RuDE, as implied by its jaunty use of capital letters, is not a serious song, and as with Bond films, is best judged on its own terms.

Seen as a golden classic by the 3-4 people who have had the wisdom to follow my musical career, it does have some merit. The beat, featuring my only use of slapped bass, could have been good if I hadn’t made it so sloppily. My bass playing was actually near its best around this time, when I still had lessons, and before I got into playing guitar a lot more. Can you tell?

Also, some of the lines are funny. A few of them. Well maybe not funny, but poetic, even.

‘It’s a bit early, so I just want some meat’ is very intriguing. I’m not sure the average person prefers meat, and only meat, at an earlier hour. Maybe I’m wrong. But the key to many of these lines is improvisation. I assume that they were basically made up on the spot, with revisions in the more refined middle section.

The poetic voice then confounds us all with the revelation that he actually ordered ‘chicken burger and fries’. So not just meat then. And all because he’s ‘in a good mood’. So maybe the early hour provokes a desire for meat, and his contentment does the same for fried potato.

There are wild accusations of ‘this place’s lies’, completely unfounded, and then we come to the crux of the protagonist’s pain: ‘and he didn’t give me ketchup with my food’.

This leads to a cataclysmic reaction from our antihero, who fucks shit up and then gets on his figurative high horse and figuratively gallops off. But not before uttering my favourite line:

‘McDonald’s is going down,
McDonald’s has got to pay,
And I’m not gonna fucking stay,
And brush it away with a frown‘

A ridiculously quaint last phrase there, although perhaps appropriate from a character who later refers to his victims’ phones as ‘telecoms’.

***SPOILER ALERT***  The saga ends with the protagonist declaring: ‘I have plans’, before gradually realising that the bullet that hit him earlier has actually left him deceased. A lame ending, although you do get to hear the brushing frown line again.

JME is a much better rapper, but he also likes to throw in the odd quaint phrase, as in this classic:

‘Put the TV on mute, have a drink but I don’t blaze’
‘You need to type of this CV, Microsoft Word, that’s you, you’re a nerd’
‘I’m left-handed, my mum calls me lefty’

CLEAN TOILETS

~ tryingartist ~ Leave a comment

https://soundcloud.com/thetryingartist/clean-toilets

Listening again to this song, my first interpretation was of the protagonist undergoing some sort of hellish muddled hallucinations. A whirlwind of pristine porcelain. A glistening white prison.

The question I was asking myself was: Why is cleanliness causing such anguish here?

And then it struck me.

The voice is not that of a prisoner, but a prison guard. This is the anguish of the obsessive compulsive totalitarian. A man so consumed by his need for order and hygiene that his world is a crashing mess of pain and dissonance.

And, whether it be the completely distorted opening, the chromatic melodies and out of tune harmonies or the stuttering, tight drumming, there is dissonance everywhere.

I don’t know whether it was deliberate or not, but the prolonged groans of ‘clean’ towards the end of the song can really only be described as ‘constipated’. It is also impossible to know now whether or not I genuinely believed ‘infestates’ was a word.

My personal memories of this song are vague. I know that I very much liked the bass line and used to play it a lot. I know that at the time I was relatively proud of the song. I thought it had intrigue. I remember telling a friend that those sliding harmonies on the ‘yeah yeah yeah’s were cool. I don’t remember whether or not he agreed.

I’m fairly certain that this song did not reflect some sort of digestive or hygienic anxiety I had.

Pain

~ tryingartist ~ 1 Comment

https://soundcloud.com/thetryingartist/pain

I absolutely hate this song.

It’s not the worst of my compositions with ‘Pain’ in the title (that will come later), but it is nonetheless incredibly irritating

We like authenticity in music. We prefer songs about heartbreak to be sung by the heartbroken. We like punk to be performed by rebels, and hip hop by people from the ghetto. Those who don’t conform to these criteria are routinely condemned as fakers.

Is it good that we judge music in this way? Not necessarily, although in many cases the expectations come from an understanding of the socio-historical foundations of a certain movement. Music is often a reaction against society. In the case of hip hop, poor black Americans began expressing themselves in a new way that was distinctly their own- by them and for them, against the backdrop of a  predominantly white society that, in the way it labelled and disadvantaged them, was institutionally racist.

So when people like Iggy Azalea imitate the rapping styles of hip hop, many people don’t just dislike it, they are actively offended by it. It demonstrates a lack of sensitivity to the social tensions at the root of hip hop culture.

And, on a less extreme level here, a song with bland lyrics about addiction and general midlife ennui sung by a whinging fresh-faced teenager isn’t that appealing. There is something about being a teenager that makes you feel the need to assert your worldly knowhow and ego to everyone. Or at least you’d think that, reading my early lyrics. My attitude and lack of self-consciousness was gradually crushed though, don’t worry.

The lyrics, in order of how annoying they sound, starting with the least annoying:

Something, and if I take it away
I don’t think you can stay
Get this thing out of your mind
What do you do when it’s taken away?
The only thing that kept you alive is ripped away
You’re bored of your car/job/house/money/wife/kids/country/world
Something to ease the pain
The pain is stronger today

This last line wins the prize of most annoying moment of the song because of its prime position at the end. The final unconvincing croak, immediately followed by a huge timing error between the guitar and drums, leaving your average listener cringing in the ears.

Good points about the song:

There are a couple of alright triplet drum fills.

Small Animals

~ tryingartist ~ Leave a comment

https://soundcloud.com/thetryingartist/small-animals

For my next song, an atmospheric instrumental that spirals slowly out of time. The spiralling not deliberate, of course.

For a bit, as the piano chord builds up, I actually like it. But then as it goes on, you ask, why hasn’t he changed it? Is it going to just keep going like this? Has he realised that he’s slowly going out of time?

Well: I don’t know, yes, and I guess not. Not until right at the end, where the ‘I’m fed up’ drum fill signals the end.

This was my first use of piano in a song, which I played by hammering various white keys with my two first fingers, moving them quickly from note to note as if I was playing the drums. It is a percussion instrument after all. I taught myself to play piano and guitar, which is why my technique has always been so bad (although technique has never been my strong point, even in drums and bass guitar where I had a good few years of lessons). I have always been more interested in writing a new song than actually practising certain aspects of my playing.

This song is significant because, I know now, piano would very gradually overtake guitar as my main instrument when writing songs. Small Animals, though, was essentially just a Garageband song- a few instrument parts building up and repeating, except this time I played them myself, quite badly.

Here’s something better with arpeggios

Dark Dude

~ tryingartist ~ Leave a comment

https://soundcloud.com/thetryingartist/sets/dark-dude

Featuring a bass line I still play when absent-minded, a bass solo that is simple yet tuneful, and lyrics so catchy they have never left my consciousness, Dude can only be considered a classic in the very-early-post-post-punk-pre-sophistication-joke-songs-by-me tradition.

‘Yeah, yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah.
yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah,
I’ve got a sausage in my pocket,
and it’s very very hard.
This is not referring to an erect penis,
But I really like them,
I really really do.
I… like… them… yeah….
yeah… yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah’

[BASS SOLO]

Many academics have suggested that this is the first song I ever wrote, citing as evidence the complete lack of acoustic guitar, an instrument that admittedly did come after bass guitar and drums for me.

They also propose hazy memories I may or may not have of playing the song live to friends in summer living rooms, long before I’d ever recorded anything.

And yet I resist the idea. My gut tells me it was indeed an extremely early song. But my head implores me to find any song, any sincere attempt at music at all that could predate Dude. If not, the foundation of all my efforts, the rock on which my future career rests, would be a dick joke.

And so, the history books will continue to list Hyper, Ever Come Near Me, and I Don’t Know as all coming first.

Dark, a slightly later instrumental version of the same song, clearly designed to render it more ‘classy’, is of absolutely no interest.

I Don’t Know

~ tryingartist ~ Leave a comment

https://soundcloud.com/thetryingartist/i-dont-know

When I made this song, I thought it was significantly better than the first two. It is, sort of. It definitely starts much better. In fact, I suspect there might be a couple of lost songs in between. Maybe I did it over a weekend instead of one evening, and bothered to fix some of the mistakes. Which is not to say there aren’t mistakes, god no. One of which being the fact that the sound is peaking the entire way through the song. Sorry about that. 

I like meta things. But sometimes I worry that artists go for meta when they have nothing else to say. When you’re sat there, ‘pen in hand’ (to this day I think I’ve written a grand total of five songs worth of lyrics by pen), and you can’t think of any words, your first thought is that you can’t think of anything. Which is why, when I’m writing a new song, and I’m improvising lyrics over a chord sequence to work out a melody, I often automatically sing the words ‘I don’t know’. In this instance, the words made it to the title.

Before I’m too disparaging of this song however, it has to be said that ‘Why do you think I’m not cool, have you seen my ipod?’ is one of my sassiest early lines. ipod as trendy consumer symbol- ipod as modern representative of the sum of a person’s music taste- music taste as signifier of cool. Sung with a nice knowing sarcasm- the emphasis on the ‘t’ of not and the ‘d’ of ipod.

Unfortunately that line is surrounded by quite a few renditions of ‘don’t ask me why I don’t go with the flow’, which is as bland as you like, and if it was also meant to be tinged with knowing sarcasm, I no longer hear it.

I remember receiving a comment from a girl I didn’t know on my Myspace music page at the time, which said something like: ‘Nice song, cool effect on your voice!’ This made me feel attractive, which I liked a lot. But it also made me doubt myself- was she aware that the effect was there partly to conceal the mediocrity of my voice? And more importantly, did she actually fancy me or not?