Weed + Work = Win: the making of She Was
Uh oh, uh oh/ Everybody knows/ That’s exactly how it goes
Being someone who loves songs and writes them too, I also find the creative process of writing songs to be interesting. So I thought the gentle reader might find it also of interest how much of DDC’s songs are written. In this case, “She Was” by me and Ron.
The Jam
Ron and I like to riff off each other. A lot of times, we just improv based on something one of us said in a conversation. In the example here, Ron just started up singing the nonsensical phrase “she was as pretty as a cheerio” and off we went on our merry way. It’s pretty embarrassing to listen to. Chords are all over the place, lyrics filled with meaningless crap, some inside jokes, and some nonsensical words. But it’s not without merit; for example, note that Ron starts singing a counter melody somewhere in the middle which later ended up as the basis for the bridge. That’s Ron on Drums, Daev on the drop-oc guitar.
She Was V1
Another Jam
By this time, I had the chance to work out a few more rhymes, although the form and verses still weren’t worked out. I decided what I wanted the song to be about, that it would be a cute, naive song about some sweet, randy guy who knocks up a girl he’s fascinated by and is in the end more than happy to face the consequences.
I was sure I wanted to build as much off of “she was so” in as many lines as possible. I never worry too much about rhyming, I think rhythm is much more important in song lyrics. But in this take, lines were missing so you’ll hear phrases that end like “merdagal” and “I wanted to bdgldaaaah”. My favorite line this time around was “she was so cool she worshiped Lucifer”, partly because it’s a bit of a tongue twister, but also because I’m sure someone out there –probably folks who write angry letters to the FCC– would find that offensive, and yet it’s absurd and harmless. Nobody really worships Lucifer, not even people who call themselves Satanists. But I digress.
On this one, it’s our novice drummer Brower playing, Ron spelling out the word “shuffle” (that didn’t stick), and me still on guitar, but no drop octave E string.
At the computer
My buddy Tyson has a really sweet tube mic, so I recorded some vox and guitar to a click and put together a sequenced version of what we had so far. The drums were sampled from my orange sparkly.
On our first CD, I did most of it myself using loops and a desktop mic. But I bought a little keyboard when I was in Paris, so I was rarin’ to try out some VSTi sounds. This might have been what the final version sounded like, but we were still missing lyrics and ultimately the sound was too far removed from our sound. Fun though.
You can also hear the bridge starting to work itself out.
Final Version
After chewing the fat some more with the lads, who said they hated the last version, I finally got the rest of the text down. I coerced Tyson into letting me record a real drum track, and another guitar and vox track, and started to put things into order. Also added were a B3 part and some more little piano bits (thanks Tchaikovsky), both VST. The worst part was fixing the drum track. I did a horrendous job playing with the click, and I had to move all kinds of beats in the computer to fix my timing.
Added was the line “she was hotter than a meteor/like a fire in a theater” which is a pretty good description of my last girlfriend. It’s important to always tell the truth when you write songs; that’s what the profs at Belmont always said.
So there it is, a little bit of fun, and a great deal of work. Inspiration and persiration, or however the saying goes. Maybe some mastication too. It’s also a great help to have good friends like Tyson, who was willing to spend some time and give access to his gear. And most importantly, I’m glad to have a bandmate who’s a dear friend like Ron. Without him this band wouldn’t have been a tenth as prolific.
