I wanted to record a song that would sound like it came right out of the late 70's/early 80's punk scene in London. Great vocals by Trevor Smith.
Story behind the song
My last few recordings were 15-20 tracks which gets kind of unwieldy. Trying to mix it down and give each track its own sonic space gets difficult. I wanted to write a song with minimal tracks and get back to basics. I thought it would be great to do a punk song in the spirit of the late 70's/early 80's punk scene in London.
I recorded 2 guitar tracks, bass and drums and tried to use minimal effects. Not being able to sing this myself I thought of Trevor from the UK who I have collaborated with a few times and I knew he could give the song an authentic punk sound and be able to sing and scream it in key. Plus his English accent.
Trevor agreed to do it and wrote the lyrics and sent me back a vocal track and I was amazed. His lyrics really paint a picture of characters right out of that time period. If you read the lyrics you really get a real sense of who Marianne & Charlie, Eric and Roxy were. He wrote three vignettes (almost like little movies) and then he sums it all up in the last verse. It works well with the guitar part in between the verses which when I recorded it I was trying to get the sense of someone running. Running away from something.
Thanks to Trevor for all his hard work on this.
It is best to listen to this at maximum volume.
Lyrics
The White Room
Marianne liked to play away , but she also loved her man
Charlie if he told the truth, didn’t really give a dam
Marianne was a pleaser, so Charlie let her please
cause Charlie was a user, he brought to her knees
but he should’a been doing time for the most enos of crimes
inside a white room where there ain’t no more sky
no more life just lots and lots of time
lots and lots and lots and lots of time
Eric was a politician who told lots of lies
Fiddled his expenses time after time
Eric always kept his eye firmly on the prize
He wanted the top job looking after all the pies
But they caught him robbing, robbing us blind
so they put him in the White room, wheres there ain’t no more sky
no more life just lots and lots of time
lots and lots of time
Roxy was a hard girl who like to punch all the girls
when we were at school she bullied them all
One girl in particular,she had short red hair
Her temper snapped one day and she went totally spare
picked a knife from cutlery as we sat eating out munch
and stabbed Roxy 30 times and then sat and finished her lunch
they quickly put her in the White White room, wheres there ain’t no more sky
no more life just lots of time
Now, everyone’s getting shafted and it just don’t seem fair
the government is cutting, cutting everything bare
people ain’t got nothing, their taking it all
forgetting the underclass who ain’t having a ball
but what does the Man say when we show them some descent
take them down take them to where the sun don’t shine,
to the white white room where there ain’t no sky
no more life just lots and lots of time