SAW 2009 #1: Distortion by Chris Devine

Hi, all! This is an experiment in blogging a little about the songs we put up for the Song a Week Podcast. There'll be a post for every song, at the very least, and perhaps some others as random thoughts occur. I may be the only one who posts, but maybe not ... I'll open it up to the others and see who bites. So now, to the song ...

I'm amazed I even got this one done. I'd assigned myself the first week of the year and found myself sitting in front of my computer with my guitar in my hand and no idea what I was gonna do. So I did what comes naturally in such circumstances: I just started fiddling around with the thing. What came out were some very unusual (for me) power chords that ended up being the intro. But I couldn't figure out how to transform that into something usable to sing over, so I ended up punting and using a 12-bar blues progression, but singing something entirely not-bluesy over top of it.

Added some weird noises, bass guitar, a LOT of distortion, etc., and the result was this song. I have no idea what it means, but I had a lot of fun breaking cardinal rule #1 of lyric/poetry writing: Never rhyme a word with itself. I did it on purpose.

The lyrics:
Find me in darkness
Find me in the wilderness
Follow me through the desert
Dig me out from the dirt
All I ever wanted was to be washed clean and wanted,
That's my weakness.

Taste the fruits of labor
Fortune's in my favor
Nothing ordinary
Was so easily carried
Taken in the night, and then forgotten by the night
That came on after.

Gone now like a phantom
Wishes, I could grant them
Clocks keep running backward,
Still your silence is awkward
All I ever hoped for was that you'd be what I hoped for
And that's absurd.