Hello and welcome one and all to the first weekly mp3 blog post from your friends in Baby Teeth. Here’s a new song I’ve been messing with called “Let It Roll.”
It was initially inspired by Neil Young who, upon hearing George W. Bush’s post-9/11 call to arms, churned out a nationalistic piece of crap called “Let’s Roll”. From a Canadian, no less! Now, of course, Neil Young has refocused his energies on deriding the war effort, but at the time it really struck me funny, and it stuck in my craw. Lyrically, I’m envisioning some kind of pre-dawn militia assembly…. in this way the song is kind of a cousin to “Diaghalev Was Right” from “The Simp”. But the lyrics are also poking fun at my own uptight nature, which doesn’t often allow “letting it roll” as a viable option. “Who out there is gonna tell me to let it roll?” When I write lines like that, I think about singing them live. I’m sure I’m not the only one who thinks that…. on the most recent Sloan album (which is awesome, by the way), there’s actually a line that goes, “Every one of you knows / What it’s like to surrender to me / Completely”. Talk about a line that would have an impact live! It could make you sound like a real ass, but they’re a great band, so they can pull it off.
Musically, I was having some fun recording the old spinet piano that I just acquired. I held a dictaphone up to it and then fed the results into my computer. If you listen close at about the 2:08 mark, you can hear the piano become much more intense and distorted. This was completely the whim of the dictaphone, but it ended up really making the arrangement. Crazy machines. I also blew the dust off of my old Dr. Rhythm drum machine, which I bought a few years back from Bobby Conn. I’m tapping out the drum pattern as the song goes on. Kinda cool, I think, to hear a drum machine going in and out of tempo. Counterintuitive…
And finally, the craftier listeners among you will recognize the origin of that little guitar riff that pops up throughout the song…. yes indeed, it’s from the intro to Tesla’s “Love Song”, my favorite jam of the 1989-90 school year. Go back and check that tune out if you haven’t for a while… it’s still a pretty great power ballad.
OK, that’s that. Please let us know what you think! Comment or rate it or whatever. I hope this will be lots of fun for all.
