If You Asked Me Why

Robert James

This came together in record time, but I feel like I could write 10000 pages on where it came from.

First off, it’s for the Reddit Song a Week. Week 12, Harmony. It qualifies as most of the vocals are in two part harmony. It’s also done on time, with three days to spare. How do you like that??

Next, the chorus. I listen to a lot of podcasts. Lately I’ve been enjoying a discussion of one of my favorite bands, R.E.M. The podcast is called R U Talking R.E.M re: Me. While discussing the band’s third record the two hosts (at least one of whom is pretty famous) were complaining about how long it takes the songs to get to the chorus. The complaints had more to do with the fact that they can’t play the whole song without having to pay a license fee, so they wanted the songs to reach the chorus before they had to stop playing it. It made me think of my own song forms. Lately I have been in the state of mind where I want to get two verses and a little break or two in before I get to the chorus. After listening to the podcast I thought maybe I should cut some of that down and just get there. The result is this little tune, which only has one verse and the break is only one bar. Future podcasts might thank me.

The third thing has to do with guitar setups. Specifically, overdrive and boost pedals. I’ve only recently stared getting really into pedals and ideas on cool ways to use them. One thing that a lot of players do that never even crossed my mind is to use an overdrive for something other than distorting your sound. Instead, if you have a good tube amp, you can use the overdrive to help the amp distort itself. I’ve read of tons of guitarists who turn the gain on their drive pedals all the way down, but turn the level all the way up. I used a duel overdrive pedal on this song. For the rhythm guitar parts I used my Stratocaster into the low gain, or boost, side of the OD pedal, setup as noted, into both of my cab simulating amps, a Vox MV50 Clean, and a 15 watt Fender Bassbreaker. Both amps were direct out into my audio interface, and then into GarageBand. For the lead parts, I used the same setup with the addition of the overdrive side of the duel pedal, also setup in the same manner as written above.

Does it sound good? Eh. I need some real actual air moving around for it to sound as good as it can.

Finally, one little note on the vocals. There are three sections. The first two have two part harmony. The third does not. The reason for this is that I had a little window of time where I had the house to myself today. I spent that time recording vocals. Just after I finished the first track for the last section, my wife came home. That settled it. No harmony on that part for me.

Coming round again and again
Never changes still the same

If you asked me why I would tell you
If you want to know I’ll agree

Something tells me this is the time
Something tells me this time