| This song was also recorded on the "End on reality" Cd in 1997. The techno groove through out the song was how I originally wrote it but we couldn' t do that live at the time so we recorded the live version in 1997. It never did get that same feel. It always was a hot tune to play out but studios can tend to take the vibe out of a good live song. I knew I needed to reinstate the original groove for this CD and it couldn't have come out better, though through desktop computer speakers it looses an important bass resonse element. Jeff's lyrics play succinctly to the title. It's a hard skill for any lyricist to say and get to the point without being too cryptic. You feel for the guy right off and the candle phrase gives you a visual atmosphere of his loneliness. For the intro Jeff actually phoned in that section to the studio for a more authentic take. During the first verse we use grinding EQ and distortion to get an old broadcast effect. From there I used an effect that breaks up the voice a bit, on headphones you can hear it "gurggling". Then on the chorus we clean up the vocals and give it some depth with delay to make the point that he's put down his radio and is screaming out to space to be heard.
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This was one of my favorite songs to perform. When we performed this song with the original drummer, it was incredible. Unfortunately, after he left the band the song never seemed to have the feel it once had and deserved. Don't get me wrong, the drummer which replaced the original is a talented drummer and I value his musicianship as well as his friendship. But if there is ever a chance we could find the original and get him in the studio again, we should and re-record this song. We may even have to record in a live format just to capture the energy. Whenever, wherever we performed this tune, everyone found it appealing. It was, in my view, one of our underground following anthem songs. People requested it not always by name but sometimes as the song with the different sounding drum like sound thing. "The block" added life to the song. The story is short but ultra cool and meaningful. If you put yourself in the characters place you can almost feel how lonely he must have felt. I think the words came to me in a power outage and I was alone. I had this walk-man cassette player with headphones and listening to the music. With a candle and legal pad in front of me, I was gazing out my window looking up at the moon thinking, if my family were up there and I were the last person left on earth, what would I be feeling? What would I do? I remember putting myself in that place as I sometimes do and thinking God, what a sense of loneliness that no one should ever have to experience. And the words just poured out on to the paper. We experimented a few different ways to capture the "distance" sound for the intro until we decided to phone it in. Tom did an outstanding job at the helm with the recording and mix down of this song and I really enjoy listening to it in my truck's stereo CD player.
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