Push Me, Entice Me, Excuse Me, Suffice Me.
Trust me to find my way home.
Blind Me, Confuse Me, Trip Me, Unwind Me.
Sedate me of all I've ever known
And If I stumble Pick me back up on my feet again.
Give me the courage to carry on.
Push Me, Extend Me, Drag Me, Append Me.
My mind isn't clear enough to see.
Hold Me, Caress Me, Mold Me, Dress Me.
My heart isn't strong enough to bleed.
And If I stumble Pick me back up on my feet again.
Give me the courage to carry on.I'm tired oy strayin', if my faith should ever be shaken,
Strip me down and build me up again.
Push Me, Duress Me, Take Me, Possess Me.
Guide me in life and in song.
Free Me, Unbind Me, When lost will you find me.
Keep me from all that is wrong.
The origins of this song is the first Piece of music I had written after the recording of UDM's "Smash Hits" in 2002. And since there was no completely new musical material on that album the original version of this really was the first song I wrote since 1998. It came about as our old End on reality manager Jamie Robinson had come across some kids he was considering managing and he wanted me to write a song for them. I gave him the song but it never materialized so I had this lying around.
PLAY ORIGINAL:
After all the songs for this album had been written I thought we needed a groove song and this fit the bill so I assumed Jeff would want to do something with it but he didn't. Fact is, I had all the tracks recorded from 2002 and I hate wasting drum and bass tracks so just as I did in Piece of Heaven I changed all the verse/prechorus guitar and kept the chorus... it was no longer a groove song but another moody piece. It was tricky because I had a number of accent spots in the original that I had to work around but that was good because they are power chord accents which keep the song for getting "muddy". The drum sound is a bit different from the other songs on the CD because I only had the 2 track of the drums, not each individually tracked drums so it all had to be EQ'd together. I also kept the original Mic'd guitar in the chorus. It is a bit thin but I liked the contrast and I'm not aiming for perfection here. I felt like doing a frantic guitar solo, I'm not one for just a random flurry but in my mind the song seemed to build and let loose at that point- kind of boiling over before it simmers back down. And the guitar outro tag I just love though it's unnecessary except for my own indulgence. I added the unnecessary line for Jeff as I'm sure that's what he thinks. You don't often get to shred with that "spaghetti western" guitar sound. Lyrically Push is about God's influence over us and how it seems he often pushes us in and out of faith, how he tests us and more specifically to me my belief in Heaven. I wrote the first 2 verses and told Jeff what the theme was and that he needed to finish it. We hadn't collaborated much lyrically so this was a good opportunity. We worked together on the verse melody and he took control of the chorus. One area we disagree a little is in the mix of the final "push me" verses. I wanted each line on a separate track panned in different locations so it seemed the voices were coming at you around the spectrum. I also changed the textures with EQ and distortion. I thought it worked pretty good but he doesn't like it. He seems more concerned that the levels are too different which to me are slight but intentional. I believe his final words were that maybe he "just doesn't get it" and he left it up to me. I don't know if he was just being amicable about it or just wanting to wash his hands of it- so I kept it my way. We'll probably both agree that the arrangement of the final chorus with the scream is still lacking something but we layed down what sounded acceptable and have moved on.
There are a couple of silly stories about this song.
First, as I recall, Tom had played a song for me and I thought he had told me that it was a song that he had recorded for Jamie Robinson at some point. He actually had played two songs for me to review. So he burned me copies of the songs, as he usually does before I leave for home so that I could write. I believe I had misunderstood him in which song was which. I remember not liking one of the songs but was extremely excited about writing to the other which, of course, I thought was the song which we referred to as "Jamie's song". So I go home and write the song and I'm really excited about it and pleased with my newly written piece. So one can imagine when I arrived to Tom's studio and we went through the process of hooking up everything and level checks and all of the pre-check lists we perform to prepare for my warm up, how crazy it must have seemed to Tom and myself that as he que'd the song and I was ready to sing he had to stop rolling and ask why I wasn't singing. I had to respond by telling him that he was playing the wrong song. There was some confusion there and not just for the reason of our misinterpretation, rather Tom had been having some issues with memory on his Mac as I recall and song titles were not matching up to the correct songs. At least that is the way I remember it...I could be wrong. But after a while, we figured it out. I just outright misunderstood Tom in which song was which when he played them for me. So then I had to break the bad news to Tom that I thought the other song sucked and I was uninspired to do anything with it. Whenever I have done this in the past, I don't think it was well received. But at least Tom and I have a working relationship that we can be honest with each other and pretty much take things constructively... "pretty much" emphasized. So anyhow, we went through the motions of practicing what is now a song entitled The Sign which will be explained in its liner notes. One day, as I am sitting at my desk, I receive the following e-mail: "Thank You, Thank You, Thank You... for not liking Jamie's song. You'll see what I mean on Thursday"- Tom Mody
And I responded: "You're welcome, yw, yw... I am guessing that you wrote another song which you are particularly fond of or something like that... I think I am excited with anticipation..." Jeffrey
And he responded: "just revamped- no sense wasting perfectly good drums and bass tracks"
So when I arrived to the studio, I was pleased with his re-arranged version of the song and inspired by it. I felt like I was going to have to try and sing like Clint Eastwood upon my first impression...just kidding... but it had that feel from the opening intro of the song which reminded me of a spaghetti western like "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly" or something. Anyhow, Tom wrote a couple of the verses which I thought were pretty cool and I believe he and I had the same vocal melody in mind for them. He told me to do whatever I wanted for the rest of the song so I did and came in and sang it. He made one minor change to a small lyrical piece in the chorus but other than that he liked that I had kept the verses similar to his theme. At this time, I think we will need to make some minor changes in the mix as Tom had alluded to.
