So we continue with tracks four – six.
Crib Notes:
Another demo Ian put strings over. This one’s a throwaway pop song I wrote in July or August 2005 whilst – funnily enough – waiting for a girl to call me (we’d met a few weeks earlier and were theoretically going to go on a date that never happened). It hopefully goes without saying that the levels of neurosis are exaggerated for effect (I say hopefully ‘cos I’m never quite sure how literal people think my songs are!).
I played this live a few times in 2005 but it eventually dropped out the set just ‘cos I thought other songs were stronger.
What Do I Think Of It Now?
My immediate thought is I really, really hate my voice on this one! I think thedouble-track thing was to cover the tunelessness of my voice but it just exaggerates it (especially ‘cos they’re not really in sync.). I also wish I’d recorded this slower – it sounds much faster than it should! I like the concept and there’s nice lyrics in places but it’s a bit throwaway really. Definitely the weakest song so far.
5. I Like It When You Call Me Doctor
Crib Notes:
This was my ‘signature song’ for quite some time and I think even now there’s people who’d say it was their song of mine that first comes to mind. At the time I wrote it I was temping in a hospital and had this general sense of frustration that I had an MA and was doing a job I could have got without any GCSEs and that sense of underachievement and desire to prove yourself is what fuels the song. I’ve never really had any ambition to be a Doctor – fake or otherwise – but I did discover that, if you’re male and working in a hospital, people will assume you’re a Doctor and, labouring under that impression. chase information for you much faster than they would for admin staff. So – whilst I never lied about my identity – I would sometimes identify what department I was from rather than the job title…
This was a staple of my solo sets but nobody else seems to be able to work out how to play it which is why it never got played in the band. On top of which in the end I felt I’d played it too many times – by the time it got dropped I just didn’t really want to play it anymore.
This was incidentally the first song Ian heard and put strings to – without it everything else wouldn’t have happened.
What Do I Think Of It Now?
Especially given the demo meant he was stuck with the guitar and vocal – and given we’d never met at the point he made it – Ian’s done an absolutely amazing job on the production. I absolutely love the epic feel to the strings and think it’s the strongest recording so far and – if memory serves – on the whole album.
Listening to the song itself is a strange experience. I think it’s an extremely good song – one of the best I’ve ever done- but I’ve changed so much since I wrote this it almost feels like it was written by someone else. Whenever I try to play it now it feels more like learning a cover version than doing one of my own songs.
Crib Notes:
Another one that did it’s stint as our signature song – I had some great experiences playing it solo as it basically hypnotizes you into a trance and it was the Awkward Silences’ set-closer for most of the early gigs.. I think this was the first song I ever wrote in this repetitive one-chord style I’d later become a huge fan and exponent of. The lyrics were inspired by a documentary I’d seen about macrophilia (though the fetish isn’t mentioned in the song I do later directly reference it on the Beasts in the Upstairs Bedroom). What fascinated me wasn’t so much the fetish itself – it’s unusual but lots of fetishes are` – but that there was this pretty normal young guy and this schoolteacher openly talking about their deepest sexual desires and you just think “hang on, you’ve got to face your friends and family colleagues and pupils after this. Won’t that be a bit awkward?” Which is where the song came in.
The decision not to describe the fetish was always a deliberate thing in the hope that people’d either fill the blank with their own fetish (90% of people have one believe) or imagine something so depraved and twisted that any description by me could only disappoint.
What Do I Think Of It Now?
Again it’s one where I feel I was a different person when I wrote it. I do think it’s damn good though – lyrically I think I achieve what I wanted to and music based on repetition of rhythms is definitely right for the subject matter. This was one of the first songs me and Ian worked on and I think the first of my songs I ever heard ‘properly’ produced so’ll always have a soft spot for that.- when the drums kick in it’s great. The stuttered vocals were one of my better ideas too. I think I go over the top vocally at the end though but nonetheless I still think it’s pretty damn impressive now.
