I spent this past weekend piecing together one of my old songs called “Faith in Religion”, thinking I may include it as part of Imprint.
I decided against it.
It’s a bizarre tune, very precociously written back in the late ’80s when I lusted after Sting — his music and his body. I’ll post a mix of the new version on the Eponymous 4 web site later, but for a work by a beginning songwriter, it sure has ambition.
It starts off very ominously, then half way through, it breaks into a dance beat till a classical chorale interrupts it, then it goes back to being ominous. I changed the end in my new mix and made the dance beat a bit funkier. But it’s still an incredibly strange tune.
And it doesn’t fit the tone of Imprint.
So I’m filing it back in the catch-all A Ghost in My Shadow project, where it originated.
It’s strange — the song has this grand ambition, but every time I try to approximate what I want from the song in my demos, I’m disappointed.
The very first time I recorded the song, I wasn’t technically schooled enough to get the feel I wanted. It didn’t help the technology I was working with was sorely limited.
And this past weekend, I had to make substitutions for crucial parts in the song. Since I’m not a guitar player with an e-bow, I couldn’t get the ominous sound I really wanted. I also wanted power chords sustained for long stretches of time, but I’m not properly equipped to handle that either.
But most importantly, I don’t have the classical chorus to deliver the break toward the end of the song. I think I could really get a kick out of this song if I could hear an actual four-part chorus disrupt it.
Maybe down the line, I can blow the money to make this song a reality.
But right now, I’m not sure what I feel for this song. The lyrics are terribly dated, written in the language of a high school student, but after all these years, I can’t think of the music without thinking “Faith in Religion”. So the song is pretty much locked thematically if I were to rewrite the lyrics.
But that’s not the issue — I’m questioning whether I actually like this song.
I can admire the grandiosity of it, and the bravery to throw in all the weird stuff in it. And I think on some level it works. But I’m reaching a style of writing where I’m trying to grab a lot more material from a lot less source.
If I can write an interesting song using only two chords, I feel like I’ve done something really impressive. I really like “Imprint”, the song, because the melody evolves over the same four chords.
That’s why I couldn’t include “Faith in Religion” with Imprint — it’s not simple enough.
Speaking of simplicity, I finished the music for a new song this weekend as well. It repeats the same four chords and requires only voice, piano and bass. No drums. I even removed a string part I put in at the start.
I won’t post it till I get the lyrics done.
It’s a bit of a filler, but a demonstration of that new style I mentioned a few paragraphs ago — getting a lot of mileage from a small amount of fuel.
Maybe I’m becoming a minimalist.