The United Dictators Of Mars

No Shadow

PLAY

requires Quicktime 7.0
Download: mac | windows

:..:...::|PURCHASE MUSIC|.:::.:..

Music: Mody/Hensley, Words: Mody

Time and place and space rearranged, I'm existing out of phase. People look and speak to me unaware of my imagery. Atoms floating yet contained in form, illusions that I'm whole and warm. Magnetic fields binding me, born without a symmetry. I can read one's beauty from silhouettes passing bye. A skill I've learned in jealousy with love's unrealized.

No one knows I've lived a thousand years. No one notices I cast no shadow. That just goes to show we judge a book by it's own cover. Never listening to the words, never seeing what's in the man.

Unexplained phenomenon or alternate dimensions, only walls seem to detect my biological infractions, Once you've lived a thousand years anonymous to spare their fears. You come to find that man can be oblivious to others needs. Even my loneliness surpasses physical law. I must be emanating subliminal withdrawal.

The excerpts from this diary one hundred years ago, were written in ageless poetry and sung with haunting melody. These last lines were written before he faded and died. And as I read them profoundly, one soul for him did cry. "Some people reach for the light, but not I... for it passes right through me. Light only let's us see, and it's bound to make us blind."

This song had a hauntingness and beauty to it in it's original electric version back on Harbinger's 1991 CD "The Inevitable" which I knew had many possible paths I could take in the rewrite for acoustic. I made the decision to make the guitar minimal and let a backing keyboard piece carry the music melody that was a harmony lead on the original. My guitar partner in Harbinger, Todd Hensley, wrote most of the musical segments to this and I arranged the piece. The acoustic arrangement is unchanged and in the same key but it was thoroughly enjoyable to make my own interpretation for acoustic. This was the 3rd song recorded for the CD in early 2009 and after having recorded most of the music by the beginning of 2010 it was interesting to go back and play this and realize how much better a player I am acoustically now. The perfect example of this is the long extended end piece. It's a series of 3 note segments using an open string on each 3rd note and not easy to play on electric but note sustain helps blend notes together and even covers up fretting mistakes. Todd played this in the electric version, On acoustic it was virtually impossible to play (for me). Not just fretting every note but the string scratching that you hear on acoustic guitar was extreme. I almost decided to try a keyboard redition but then decided to basically "cheat" a guitar version. I recorded 3 notes on a track, and did that for 7 tracks until the full measure was recorded. I mixed all 7 tracks together and then just digitally duplicated the measures until the song's end. So the end was recorded 3 notes at a time. I tried to play it recently and actually played it straight through without issue but still the string scratching was a problem. I masked the stiffness of that recording approach by giving 2 measures a distant mix and 2 measures a full mix. I've noted on other liner notes my pride in the lyrics to this song but Jeff was able to convey even more emotionally it's feel in the acoustic form . The recording quality sparlkes and is greatly enhanced by the digital percusiive sounds and low frequency mixed into the song. It's length probbaly kills any commercial potential but then again, I've always had a knack for killing commercial potential.

The original form of this song is one which I am particularly fond of. I believe it is one of Tom's best lyrical pieces to date. It was an enjoyable song way back when we originally recorded and performed it...so when Tom re-introduced it for the acoustic CD, I was very pleased and eager to work with it. As I recall though, it wasn't quite as easy as I had imagined it would be to make a dissimilar arrangement vocally. But I really enjoy a challenge. The most challenging part was the outro piece. It seems Tom inadvertently did not have enough measures in the piece and under calculated the vocal starting point. So instead of him re-recording all of the arrangement, I had to fix the issue vocally. It definitely was a challenge but when all was said and done, I was happily satisfied with the diversity of the piece in comparison to its original version. Well done Tom...even if in part, it was by accident. But that is sometimes the magic of making music.

::.::::.| Back to ACOUSTIC Page |:.::..:.| UDM Era History |:...:..:.::