Music

The Story

"Time" is definitely the one song I've written that everyone seems to like. Even I like it. It was a huge pain in the ass to write, though. It took me months!

It all started on the toilet.... Strangely, that's true: most of the chorus (together with the melody) did come to me suddenly one evening while I was going to the bathroom. It was during a time when I was working 2 nearly full-time jobs in webdev and volunteering 10 hours per week at a grade school. I hardly had time to crap, which is probably why I used that time to inspire a song about time and doing things with it that aren't work.

The first verse was actually pretty easy. I was riding on the satisfaction of the sound I had conjured, and ever since hearing Donald Fagen sing "drinkin' his dinner from a paper sack" in "Daddy Don't Live In That New York City No More", I was dying to steal that image. Out came, "drinkin' pity from a paper bag". I don't know where the rest of the verse came from, but it wasn't too hard.

The rest of the song took me fully 6 months to complete! It took so long that the process actually managed to outlive the abortive relationship I kindled and subsequently destroyed with my roommate, Jackie, hence the love references that were, for once, not just fluff.

I do feel like I should explain the second verse a little bit, though. I always feel a little self-conscious singing "her eyes are lowered to your crown". The thing is, I had not only just secured two really high-paying jobs, but I had managed to make them fight over me. I felt kingly. So when I wrote that verse, it was actually a little bit of a self-jab, alluding to being on a bit of a high horse. This is made a little bit more obvious when the second part of it comes around ("and then she leaves without a trace...."), but honestly, I've never been sure if maybe I just sound like a misogynist douche. Anyway, that wasn't the intention.

The only part of this song that I deeply regret is the end of the last verse. For all the great material in this song, I just couldn't think of a better ending than "it's time you find what's on your mind, and walk a different way" (in the attached recording, it's even worse: "it's time you find what's on your mind, she's not so far away"). I'll keep rewriting that line for the rest of my life.

Update: I finally did find a better lyric: It's time you find your peace of mind; there's nothing in your way

Other interesting tidbits:

• The last verse in this recording has been rewritten with the lyrics indicated below.
• This was my debut as a trumpet star, playing a $60 horn I purchased on craigslist!
• Did U Know? This is my second recording with a drum machine, though this one was the much more sophisticated loop application within Apple's Logic Pro, rather than my chintzy little Alesis drum machine.