Tragic Chemistry

Background Info*

Something of a morality play, about the tendency of people to self-destructive action. I peopled the song with literary/biblical characters that illustrate the idea. Greed and hubris, while often attributes that help propel people to success in the short term, usually aren’t associated with happy endings. I would like to shoot for a kind of exotic, minor vibe, with a throbbing bass line and delay-driven guitar parts. There will be several delay parts, so being really in the pocket relative to the click track will be important so that as I layer the guitars we don’t start to sound sloppy. We’ll work this one hard with the click.

Technical Notes

The drone rhythm part is generated by a complicated stereo signal path involving a Fender Strat, two Vox Time Machine delay peddles, an Electroharmonix Small Clone chorus pedal, and Electroharmonix Polychorus, a Vox AC-15 amp and a Fender Twin amp separated by baffles.

Lyrics

sweet lolita
come of age
she deceives him
humbert in a cage
the deepest love
she will betray

down the river
the water boils
kurtz is drowning
amid the spoils
of a power
he could not help but hold

the ties that bind
us to ourselves
are stronger than those
to anything else
and the burns
on our arms
remind us
that this will come to harm

young absalom
what have you known?
cut your father
for his lonely throne
in the end you're only bones
broken in the dirt
no love or forgiveness
will take away the hurt
placed on your head
left for dead
deserted
still david mourned you

sweet lolita
what have you known?
are you drowning?