Guess You Just Had to Be There

Robert James

50/90 runs from July 4 through October 1. Three months. When I work on it I tend to break the project up into four pieces. Songs started and finished in each of the three months, and songs that cross between months. This is the only cross month song that crosses all three months. It was started in July and finished in September. What does that mean? Nothing. Why is that important? It’s not. Not even a little bit.

I like this one. It’s really simple but the melody is cool. I’m not sure why I stuck all of the lead guitar at the end, but it’s working for me.

The guitars are all Gibson ES-335. One of these days I’m going to start using my Les Paul again, but not today. The amps on all tracks are both a Vox AC15 and a Fender Bassbreaker 15. The rhythm guitar used a Klon KTR. It also had a little bit of the AC15’s tremolo. The lead used the KTR and a Malaise Forever Black Lives Matter. There’s also an MXR Phase 90 on the last three or four notes of the solo. I don’t know why.

Verse 1
guess you just had to be there
had to see for yourself
guess you just had to know it would come back to you

no there wasn’t a reason
for the way it went down
no there wasn’t a thing that you could do about it

Chorus
there is no surrender
there is no accepting
you are the defender
you’re the secret weapon

when the sky is darkest
when the night has fallen
when the knife is sharpest
that’s when you come calling

Verse 2
what else is there to tell you
you can see on your own
what else is there to show you how it all gets done

never mind what they’re saying
they don’t know what it means
never mind that they’re trying to get under your skin