#morosecode

We began shooting a video for the second single, ‘Morose Code’, the other night and only lack another short evening of shooting to get everything that we need for that. It is the artier response to the first video for ‘Asphalt’, which was just a performance-based video. The song itself started in my apartment on Meeker Avenue in Brooklyn and that demo ended up being this sorta’ muddy backing track that we built upon in the studio when we did the record. I am very proud of it as it is one of those detours that occur on the album in terms of whatever comprehensive sound could have possibly been achieved- cos I did/always do my best to fight that. (The world doesn’t need any more white dudes in glasses doing “psyche” music.) It has all grown frightfully unremarkable and boring. And so few, truly, great songs have been achieved int he process. 

Anyways, the song and video collectively have a peculiar concept, being a phone call from a prior “self” to a past love. I have always envisioned this past-self occupying a purgatory state for eternity...one ofour ,any “selves” sentenced to the past and their own respective purgatories...and that that place looks like an old, dim bar. At least MY many stoaway-selfs reside in such places; a place for thought, reflection, regrets- if you allow for such things. (I am reminded of a book by a neuroscientist that I once read: all stories about “God”, even though this scientist was- for lack of a better word- an atheist. One story was about the problem that God would have with which “you” would be in heaven: the teenager? Well, they are annoying and would just try to fuck each other the whole time. A small child? They need a lot of attention and help. Older people are nostalgic for their younger selves and not much fun. Etc. So, God decides that a person will be divided into many, many “selves”, spanning from their newborn “self”, all the way to the person they were when he or she took his/her final breath...and once a year they would have a reunion. I will research later and see if I can find this book as it has been many years.)

So the conversation within the song is a call from a past love, who is a past self. He or she is a mess; a lonely alcoholic. The opposite party only hears from him/her under the hypnosis of drunkeness and/or heartbreak. And, per usual, I feel a little icky when all of this is too obvious so I have blurred the line between who is speaking and when. As it goes with songs, you never hit the bullseye in your head so something else materializes as the finished product. I did actuslly hear it as something between Sparklehorse and Roger Waters- so I got that much right.

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Tonight has been chores associated with band and DJ obligations. The coffee began to wear off and I went down a Merle Haggard rabbit-hole which led to some smiles, tears, and thoughts on songwriting. I am always so caught up in the stress and obligations of work, jobs, and the satelliting items to promote all the shit, that I feel like I only have the head to create at a 30%-45% potential. That is upsetting. But it’s the way that it is.