The United Dictators Of Mars - SONG - TORROD Terra Incognita

Terra Incognita

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Music: Hensley/Mody, Words: Harris

If there's light at the end of the tunnel? Oh, where can it lead. Extending towards you with warmth and emotion. Attending to your every need.

Fight! I'm calling you. I'm drawing you near
Perspiration. I can sense fear.

Are you scared when alone in the night time? Are you hushing to be still? Pumping harder your heart senses danger. Reaching climax to the hilt.

The transcending boundaries of human emotion shedding tears of anger. Ask me not of what may seem... terra incognita.

Clench your fist and try to hold on.

My Guitar sound BLOWS! But it's listenable. This song was recorded by Lynx a few years earlier under the title Critical Condition. I'm not sure how the story of us redoing it came about but it's a good thing we did because We'll Meet Again was recorded during these sessions and wasn't good enough to print- and that's saying something. In those days 4 songs was called an EP while a full album was an LP. An EP usually had 4 songs so we needed this song. I rewrote the chorus music and may have had an uncredited hand in a word or two of the lyrics. Terra Incognita means "unknown land" and in this case the unknown reference is to death. I actually like this song for this album. I thougt everyone performed well on it. I wrote the guitar solo the night before it was recorded at the studio apartment. I recorded it in 2 sections and it's kinda' cool how they join in a harmony at the mid point. The word "fear" was a big road block in the recording. Jeff will probably tell you that everytime that word came up Andy and I would cringe at his attempt. I came up with the flanged whisper which worked better and then we changed it up at the end. Great finishing scream by Jeff and this one was in the books... way on a back shelf I hope :)

As I recall, we had to substitute a song in place of We'll Meet Again for reasons explained by Tom. After much debate and little time to do so with, we finally decided on a remake, if you will, of a song recorded by LYNX, a band which Andy James and myself had previously been a part of. Originally, the song was entitled Critical Condition. We had to literally rewrite the song on the spot. Musical improvisation. Much of the changes we collaborated on in the apartment above the studio, as well as in the studio. Some of the vocal changes were created in the process of recording so there were many instances of takes and re-takes to refine the song to suit us. The phrasing of the word fear was the most troubling for me. Tom, I beg to differ with you. I came up with the whisper idea because I was frustrated with the "dog like" sound in the phrasing which you and Andy had insensitively pointed out to me (which you were right, by the way). Fight! Sorry Tom, the whisper idea was mine but perhaps the flange effect was yours. I believe we had to either get permission from Todd Hensley, the guitarist from LYNX which Andy and I had written the song with or just change the song somewhat, just so we could record the song. I hope Tom will clear that up for me in a rebuttal as I am sure he will. This song is probably my fav on this EP if I were to listen nowadays because of the stronger portions of the vocals.

Tom's Rebuttle: As I've said before, take all the credit you want for Torrod stuff right or wrong, I'm not willing to wager either way. But I will correct one presumption, and that is that we decided shortly before going to UCA to redo Critical Condition. All of the chorus changes were written at our rehearsal space at Mountain View. Adjustments to vocals and my lead were written in the studio. The Torrod EP was suppose to be 5 songs given the ability to do that in the time frame. I hear the phone ringing already!!!

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