Pretentious Loser

Robert James

Okay… there’s a lot to talk about with this goof ball.

The first song I did this year had a drone-like fuzzy guitar. I did it again here but I wanted the song I put around it to be different than the other one, even though the changes are awfully similar. This song became a little on the funky side. I don’t think that’s what I had in mind originally, it just sort of happened.

As I was recording the rhythm parts I wanted to put a distinct division between the droney parts and the hook, so I changed up the tone a little and put the chorus on separate tracks. It sort of works, though I am not sure I like the tone. Under the verses I was getting a little nervous that it would sound empty with just the drone so I setup another guitar sound and added the chunky disco wah wah thing. At first I was loving it, but when I listened back a few days later I decided I would either put it way back in the mix or cut it entirely. I decided to bury it and play little games with panning.

Then we come to the lyrics. In the Covid-19 universe, death is always kinda on our minds. If not, we wouldn’t be locking down as hard as we have and the last year would have turned out very different. I wasn’t planning on writing about death but it started coming out of me and I couldn’t stop it. I churned out the first two verses quickly and then stepped back to review what I had. My thought after a moment’s reflection was, what a pretentious douche I am. I really thought I sounded like a kid who read an older sibling’s Philosophy 101 textbook and then decided the were “deep” and knew all the answers. Again, what a douche. So, naturally, that’s what I wrote about in the chorus. Verse = douchey know it all. Chorus = Making fun of myself for being a douchey know it all. Perfect!

The lead guitars aren’t really noteworthy as far as building this mess of a mess is concerned, but it was the last of a whole pile of songs I worked on that night and I was pretty clearly out of gas. Oh well.

The last questions is, will this get dropped from the final RPM Challenge album? It probably should, but the whole thing is so goofy and stupid that I might just keep it for laughs.

The guitars are all Gibson ES-335 through both a Vox AC15 and a Fender Bassbreaker 15. As for pedals… okay… the drone is a Ryra The Kone into a Wren and Cuff Super Russian. The chorus is the Ryra into a Malaise Forever Black Lives Matter. The disco goofiness is a crybaby wah into the Ryra. The lead is the same as the chorus, the Ryra into the Black Lives Matter.

They say that you will never hear the one that’s meant just for you
they say that they will call to you and bid you come away with them

Mystery we can never know what happens to us when our number’s up
I don’t think that I want to know I want remain ignorant

I think it’s like a light switch that just clicks off and then that’s it
I’m not afraid of nothingness that’s where we start that’s where we end

Empty heads empty lives empty what do you please
it will last for forever
like a kid getting into philosphy just believing whatever