Letting It All Out

Letting It All Out
Written and Recorded 2005

I don't know if I've made this clear or not, but I used to want to be a rocker. And by that I mean I really,  really wanted to be a rocker. I tried so hard to write songs that would blow people away with how much it rocked and how original it was. This is a song that is a prime example of that mentality as senior in high school/freshman in college. The original title is lost, but I think it had something to do with "Debtor's somethingorother." This song was actually performed once or twice with a "band," that I nearly always forget about, called Accelematrix. The band itself was just me and the drummer from my other high school bands, occasionally joined by another friend of ours. Being only 17/18 at the time, there wasn't much in the way of shows available to play, so we only played at our friend's house. One might call this band a skidmark on the underpants of my band history.

• The intro and verses aren't that bad in terms of music. I like the rhythm that the guitars keep, giving it a little space which accentuates the rhythm even more.
• The chorus has about a million chords. Having the first part of the progression on D major, then the second part going to D minor right away is a uninformed mistake. I think I knew it was weird at the time, but that's kind of what I was going for. It's also a bit strange to have that D major chord played open when the rest of the song is power chords.
• Lyrically, it is pretty simple: a proud little rebel boy wants to be better than he is (teen angst.) Props for the use of the word "Grumble." 
• The structure of this song is pretty sound. With that opening riff/interlude it breaks things up nicely. I remember the bridge coming much later in the song's composition. It's comprised of two progressions, which are simple in comparison to the rest of the song. In that respect it does a nice job of moving the song forward.
• You can really hear on the chorus how bad I want my voice to rock, but it just doesn't have that edge. I tried to get there by going to the higher parts of my range at the time, but that just made me strain. 
• Not a bad song, but like some of my other earlier attempts it is overly complicated for the sake of complication. (ROCK)
• Side note: this is the first recording I experimented with compression. So it sounds a bit odd at times. Also I put a ton of effects on the keyboard drums to make them sound more real...but it doesn't.