(part 231) MAKING SILVER NAIL

Ping ponging, or collectively reducing the number of tracks into a single track, allowed me to build recordings that far outnumbered the 4 original tracks available to me on the TEAC recorder I was using.

Because of this, I was able to create such things as Silver Nail, or the da da da da song, as I called it, back when I was making the recording.

It has layers of multiple tracks, that were added over time, to create depth and dimension to the production.

The song was written about my thoughts and feelings toward life at the time, as well as the past, and how the hopelessness of repetitive problems plagued me.

The lyric content is dark and forceful, while the da da da da vocal parts attempt to lend an opposite pollyannaish accent. This was purposeful and hopefully lends itself to the sense of dichotomy.

Because my life was not improving at all when I did these songs, there are direct links to my thoughts and feelings written into them, in 1985.

As mentioned, Carol was not a fan, musically, of what I was doing there. She had heard much of my work over the years, and far preferred my more melodic and sensuous songs.

Because of this, I was not given the support from her I might have enjoyed had she been in love with the songs I was writing and recording in her apartment. As you might well imagine, this tended to create tension.

Just outside my door was a hall where a telephone was placed. It had a fifty foot cord on it, so it didn't need to sit just outside the door where I was working. Nonetheless Carol kept putting it there no matter how many times I asked her not to.

I explained that the phone ringing, when I was working on something, ruined whatever it was I was doing, because the ringing got recorded too.

Things like this caused no end to my difficulty in the creation of this material, and caused me to get angry at her on many occasions, again making things more difficult.

Perhaps if she'd read these lyrics, and understood how much this meant to me, she could have lent herself a little more to the recording of these songs, but that never happened.


...SILVER NAIL...

CITY LIGHTS
THE RAINY STREET
LONELY NIGHT
NO ONE TO MEET
TAKE A RIDE
TO NOWHERE'S DOOR
SHOOT SOME PAIN
YOU FINALLY SCORE

DA DA DA DA DA DA

WHITE LINE MIRROR
BROKEN GLASS
GOT TO GET
SOME SPEED UP FAST
NEON BLINKING
ON YOUR FACE
SCREW THESE RULES
IT'S DEATH'S OWN PACE

DA DA DA DA DA DA

BLACK AND BURNED
BENT TO ROLL
LIKE DICE YOU THROW
YOUR GODDAMNED SOUL
AGAINST THE ODDS
OF DESTINY
YA LAUGH AT WHERE
YOU'LL NEVER BE

DA DA DA DA DA DA

NOW YOU SEE
THE SHINING LIGHT
RAINY STREETS
THE BLACKENED NIGHT
SCARLET TEAR
A SILVER NAIL
RUSHING PEACE
A LIFE SO FRAIL

DA DA DA DA DA DA

Bobby Jameson 1985