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Description
SHORT VERSION
The main riff to this song had been collecting dust in an audio bin for awhile, and honestly, it was dying a slow and lonely death. However, two Macjammers (unbeknownst to them) helped to save this riff from almost certain death, and consequently, it now lives happily as a song here on MJ.
The first musical EMT that helped revive this riff was Ravens. Her electro-pop sensation “KARMA” was so powerful, and that opening bass synth so driving and sexy, I became immediately inspired to continue working on my riff. After laying down a few accompanying tracks and learning Ultrabeat (I still can’t play drums due to my surgery), I started thinking about what the song should be about and what the vibe should be (this will be covered ad nauseam in the “long version”).
That’s when the second musical EMT arrived on the scene, namely jgurner. “Tear Them Down” displayed such raw emotion and frustration with what’s going wrong in the world, it resonated with my own frustration and sense of “understanding” that humanity is moving in the wrong direction (whatever that means). I knew then the vibe I wanted to go with.
So, thanks to the two of you (and many others) who had an influence on my thinking. This song is a testament to all of our music being influential, and therefore, important. Although this song is a completely opposite perspective on God and spirituality than my previous song, it is still the second song in a row that deals with this subject matter. I don’t know why that is, but something’s inside and needs to come out. I hope it does with this one.
EDIT: After posting this song, I A/B'd it against my original MP3 in iTunes, and a lot of my low end has been lost after uploading. It has way more punch in it's original form. Looks like I'm going to have to invest in mastering software that optimizes for compression streaming.
For those of you who are still actually reading and want to be tortured further with my musings, please read on.
LONG VERSION
Disclaimer: the subject matter is about God, but not necessarily any specific God. The song image is not meant to annoy anyone, I just have always thought that saying was a bit oxymoronic. I do not intend to promote or discount any religion, segment of society, or anything like that; this is just an exploration of ideas and “what if’s,” nothing more.
During the first week of the multiple disasters in Japan, I was reading online reports from various news outlets across the country about the terrible suffering and loss of life. But while the articles were amazingly sad, I began to notice the local news headlines that were placed on the sidebars of the various news sites. What I found shocked and sickened me even more than the tragedies in Japan. Story after story of people committing unspeakable acts against each other, animals, and nature; people young and old, rich or poor…there just wasn’t any rhyme or reason to it. It wasn’t that I didn’t know evil exists in the world (I grew up in SoCal, after all), but the sheer magnitude of atrocities that seem to occur regularly, yet don’t even seem to make a blip on the news anymore???!!! It’s like these acts of violence are just being accepted as part of living in a “modern” society. Well, I was having a hard time accepting that.
Couple the above with the bread and circuses we surround ourselves with daily: greed, consumerism, the sex and violence that passes for entertainment, entitlement, power, etc…and it’s not a giant leap for some to stop and ask themselves, “what happened to us and what IS going to happen to us in the future?” It seems as if mankind has lost its sense of its larger purpose. Instead, it has created its own petty purposes that on the surface may seem to lead to somewhere, but certainly not to our larger purpose.
So as I was pondering these questions and the apparent moral decaying of society at large (gratuitous statement, perhaps), I wondered what God thought about all this nonsense going on down here on earth. If a God really did create the universe and everything in it, then surely he/she/it put us here on earth for a reason, yes? Surely there was something great (or at least mediocre) we were meant to achieve collectively as an “intelligent” species. Surely we weren’t supposed to be doing the types of things I was reading about on those news sidebars, right?
Well, what if after a few thousand years of modern man’s existence on earth God finally gave up on humanity? Seriously. What if after ions of giving clues to mankind as to the nature of reality and our purpose in it, after giving countless second chances, repeatedly granting forgiveness as we continued to turn our collective backs on him, he just couldn’t watch it anymore. What if one day he was reading those same sickening news sidebars I was and just said “Fuck it. I’m done.”? What would that look like to us? A devastating earthquake? A tsunami? Man-made disasters? A further moral decaying? I’m not talking Biblical punishment here, I’m talking about a God walking away from a bad idea.
Well, that was the inspiration for the song, but I guess we’ll all just have to wait and see how this whole humanity experiment thingy works out. Good luck to all of you.
Sorry if the above came off as preachy; it wasn’t meant to be. It’s just an exploration of thought.
The main riff to this song had been collecting dust in an audio bin for awhile, and honestly, it was dying a slow and lonely death. However, two Macjammers (unbeknownst to them) helped to save this riff from almost certain death, and consequently, it now lives happily as a song here on MJ.
The first musical EMT that helped revive this riff was Ravens. Her electro-pop sensation “KARMA” was so powerful, and that opening bass synth so driving and sexy, I became immediately inspired to continue working on my riff. After laying down a few accompanying tracks and learning Ultrabeat (I still can’t play drums due to my surgery), I started thinking about what the song should be about and what the vibe should be (this will be covered ad nauseam in the “long version”).
That’s when the second musical EMT arrived on the scene, namely jgurner. “Tear Them Down” displayed such raw emotion and frustration with what’s going wrong in the world, it resonated with my own frustration and sense of “understanding” that humanity is moving in the wrong direction (whatever that means). I knew then the vibe I wanted to go with.
So, thanks to the two of you (and many others) who had an influence on my thinking. This song is a testament to all of our music being influential, and therefore, important. Although this song is a completely opposite perspective on God and spirituality than my previous song, it is still the second song in a row that deals with this subject matter. I don’t know why that is, but something’s inside and needs to come out. I hope it does with this one.
EDIT: After posting this song, I A/B'd it against my original MP3 in iTunes, and a lot of my low end has been lost after uploading. It has way more punch in it's original form. Looks like I'm going to have to invest in mastering software that optimizes for compression streaming.
For those of you who are still actually reading and want to be tortured further with my musings, please read on.
LONG VERSION
Disclaimer: the subject matter is about God, but not necessarily any specific God. The song image is not meant to annoy anyone, I just have always thought that saying was a bit oxymoronic. I do not intend to promote or discount any religion, segment of society, or anything like that; this is just an exploration of ideas and “what if’s,” nothing more.
During the first week of the multiple disasters in Japan, I was reading online reports from various news outlets across the country about the terrible suffering and loss of life. But while the articles were amazingly sad, I began to notice the local news headlines that were placed on the sidebars of the various news sites. What I found shocked and sickened me even more than the tragedies in Japan. Story after story of people committing unspeakable acts against each other, animals, and nature; people young and old, rich or poor…there just wasn’t any rhyme or reason to it. It wasn’t that I didn’t know evil exists in the world (I grew up in SoCal, after all), but the sheer magnitude of atrocities that seem to occur regularly, yet don’t even seem to make a blip on the news anymore???!!! It’s like these acts of violence are just being accepted as part of living in a “modern” society. Well, I was having a hard time accepting that.
Couple the above with the bread and circuses we surround ourselves with daily: greed, consumerism, the sex and violence that passes for entertainment, entitlement, power, etc…and it’s not a giant leap for some to stop and ask themselves, “what happened to us and what IS going to happen to us in the future?” It seems as if mankind has lost its sense of its larger purpose. Instead, it has created its own petty purposes that on the surface may seem to lead to somewhere, but certainly not to our larger purpose.
So as I was pondering these questions and the apparent moral decaying of society at large (gratuitous statement, perhaps), I wondered what God thought about all this nonsense going on down here on earth. If a God really did create the universe and everything in it, then surely he/she/it put us here on earth for a reason, yes? Surely there was something great (or at least mediocre) we were meant to achieve collectively as an “intelligent” species. Surely we weren’t supposed to be doing the types of things I was reading about on those news sidebars, right?
Well, what if after a few thousand years of modern man’s existence on earth God finally gave up on humanity? Seriously. What if after ions of giving clues to mankind as to the nature of reality and our purpose in it, after giving countless second chances, repeatedly granting forgiveness as we continued to turn our collective backs on him, he just couldn’t watch it anymore. What if one day he was reading those same sickening news sidebars I was and just said “Fuck it. I’m done.”? What would that look like to us? A devastating earthquake? A tsunami? Man-made disasters? A further moral decaying? I’m not talking Biblical punishment here, I’m talking about a God walking away from a bad idea.
Well, that was the inspiration for the song, but I guess we’ll all just have to wait and see how this whole humanity experiment thingy works out. Good luck to all of you.
Sorry if the above came off as preachy; it wasn’t meant to be. It’s just an exploration of thought.
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Lyrics
So you thought me down and out
Turned your back, confirmed your doubt
Washed up, burnt out, a legend of lies
Useless, boring, a big waste of time
Thought you had it figured out
You burned our love, took the easy way out
Got your rocks, your needle and vial
Wasted, tasteless, a bon vivant style
The clues were there to set you free
But you ignored that reality
Eyes, closed, tuned out, master your fate
You asked for forgiveness a little too late
Well by now I'll bet you've guessed
It's not good news, it's a whole lot less
Angry, vengeful, filled with regret
Destroy it, erase it, my patience is spent
Let there be light
Turned your back, confirmed your doubt
Washed up, burnt out, a legend of lies
Useless, boring, a big waste of time
Thought you had it figured out
You burned our love, took the easy way out
Got your rocks, your needle and vial
Wasted, tasteless, a bon vivant style
The clues were there to set you free
But you ignored that reality
Eyes, closed, tuned out, master your fate
You asked for forgiveness a little too late
Well by now I'll bet you've guessed
It's not good news, it's a whole lot less
Angry, vengeful, filled with regret
Destroy it, erase it, my patience is spent
Let there be light
alackbass
I love the heavy techno vibe! Has that thick NIN atmosphere! The overdriven vocal sections help to drive home that vibe!