KVR Audio

zeoy · Post by **zeoy** » Wed Jun 06, 2007 1:39 pm

The result of my collaboration with Xander

zeoy: Original Song, Bass, Drums, Guitars, Arrangement
xander: Vocals, Lyrics, Guitars, Arrangement

Lyrics
===================================
Just One More Sacrifice

It's dark out here,
There's no starshine,
Just bitter tears,
and tasteless wine...

It's so cold out here,
There's no relief,
Temples of doom,
Hollow belief...

Inside the boxes,
That they're dying to sell,
You'll see a heaven,
Right next to a hell...
Just one more sacrifice,
Is all we need,
Suffer in blood,
For eternity...

Proud of their horses,
Proud of their fame,
They fill all the boxes,
That are labeled with shame...

Stacked up in order,
All nice and clean,
Dirt free and friendly,
On islands of green--

Who the hell is driving, this mindless machine...

Inside the boxes,
That they're dying to sell,
You'll see a little heaven,
Right next to a hell,
Just one more sacrifice,
To kill all our fears --

There's no rainbow, in the mist of these tears...

Just one more sacrifice,

Just one more sacrifice,

Just one more sacrifice,

Just one more sacrifice...
=========================================

Special thanks to kilroy for his excellent mastering services and uncles Max and Mello for their useful avant-premiere comments

We enjoyed the process all the way through and we are proud of our baby

Grab it here or here

mellotronaut · Post by **mellotronaut** » Wed Jun 06, 2007 1:49 pm

This is THE BIGGIE!

Listen, folks!

come back later...meal is waiting for little mello-boy.... .

wavephonic · Post by **wavephonic** » Wed Jun 06, 2007 3:56 pm

What a great friggin song guys.
The vocals are fantastic Xander and hey that pick chording is top stuff Nik.
Excellent job on drums to, this thing just feels so cool.
The mix is very contemporary, radio ready for sure.
I'll be blasting this out over the pond next week, I'm sure to get free beer, lol, I'll drink them in your name but pass the song on with full credits to you guys.

must listen again

wavephonic · Post by **wavephonic** » Wed Jun 06, 2007 3:57 pm

and again!!

xander · Post by **xander** » Wed Jun 06, 2007 4:44 pm

Hey thanks for the good words Wavephonic

It was great working with the very talented Nikos on this -- a real pleasure

mellotronaut · Post by **mellotronaut** » Wed Jun 06, 2007 5:29 pm

Superb song! Fantastic vocals and instrumental work, cd-ready mix...high emotional quality... listen to the drums and the guitars!
Hard to beat: it's just high quality rock...timeless...in ten years i'll listen to this song as well, i'm sure... .

Bravissimo!

m

multree · Post by **multree** » Wed Jun 06, 2007 5:34 pm

yup - it's good....

shadoe42 · Post by **shadoe42** » Wed Jun 06, 2007 5:51 pm

nice. Got a nice proggy vibe to it.

Laguna Rising · Post by **Laguna Rising** » Wed Jun 06, 2007 6:31 pm

EXCELLENT ! I like this one...
It sounds like you 2 put a lot of effort into it

cool rocking thing

Cheers

Jay Sherman · Post by **Jay Sherman** » Wed Jun 06, 2007 8:10 pm

Very good. Especially the vocals.

What does the sacrifice refer to?

mmichalski59 · Post by **mmichalski59** » Wed Jun 06, 2007 8:20 pm

Yep, this one goes to the "Drive to Work" CD, the place where all great stuff goes. Alex, I think you could cover Warren Zevon and nobody would know the difference.

Super stuff, guys!

zeoy · Post by **zeoy** » Wed Jun 06, 2007 9:13 pm

Alex is sleeping now so I'm doing the nightshift

wavephonic wrote:What a great friggin song guys.
The vocals are fantastic Xander and hey that pick chording is top stuff Nik.
Excellent job on drums to, this thing just feels so cool.
The mix is very contemporary, radio ready for sure.
I'll be blasting this out over the pond next week, I'm sure to get free beer, lol, I'll drink them in your name but pass the song on with full credits to you guys.
must listen again

thanx buddy. hope you get lots of free bear ... errm I mean beer

mellotronaut wrote:...timeless...in ten years I'll listen to this song as well, i'm sure... .

unless you're deaf by then

. glad you liked it uncle Chris. Did Karin listen too?. I'm curious.

multree wrote:yup - it's good....

OK, I'll be laconic too... Thanx mully

shadoe42 wrote:nice. Got a nice proggy vibe to it.

must be the carry-over effect from Mrach-prog-month contest.

Laguna Rising wrote:It sounds like you 2 put a lot of effort into it

Yup. Took too many hours of work from both parts. Best thing is that it was an interactive collab. Started with three chords on the guitar, different tempo, different feel. Then, Alex sang a couple of lines and it gave me new ideas. The whole tune moved to another direction. When my job was almost done Alex rearranged some parts, played his mad leads and I was left with a 6 minutes/30+ tracks monster to arrange and mix. That was one hell of a journey

Jay Sherman wrote:Very good. Especially the vocals.

What does the sacrifice refer to?

I think everyone could have a different interpretation. I never asked Alex about his thoughts or the meaning of the lyrics cause I never felt the need to do it. I loved them from day one and their meaning was clear on my mind. But let's wait to hear the poet himself.

mmichalski59 wrote:Yep, this one goes to the "Drive to Work" CD, the place where all great stuff goes. Alex, I think you could cover Warren Zevon and nobody would know the difference.
Super stuff, guys!

Since I started mixing it I've made more than 10 "Drive to Work" audio CDs each one with only one track ...
first it was the edit_i (i=1,2...12) series. Then the serious_edit_j (j=1,2,5) series and finally the final_edit_k (k=1,2) series. The final_edit series weren't that bad for a "Drive to Work" compilation

Thanx to all guys and thanx Alex for the great collab

Max el Belga · Post by **Max el Belga** » Wed Jun 06, 2007 11:59 pm

Maybe it's time to say something realy bad about this song, the guitars, the voice...
...if not you might get too euphoric...

I'm afraid I have to pass on that one

; I just love this combination of U 2. I mean both of you !

I'm jealous of you Zeoy for having Alex in your collab and Alex, I'm jealous of you, for heaving that voice. BTW, is that a dist/OD chip you've got built in yer throat or is it the consequence of that "tasteless wine" ?

Ciao,

JealousMax... .. .

xander · Post by **xander** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 12:50 am

Ayaaii... where to start

Coffee... beginning... to... work... now...

So many nice comments -- thanks every1

Yeah - the lyrics.

At the risk of being accused of being a pompous twit manufacturing insipid gibberish for the sake of song writing, I can say a couple of things.

I write my lyrics in a kind of 'stream-of-consciousness' style. For instance, these lyrics I wrote about a year ago while watching the evening news. I get worked up, start pacing around a bit and just mouthing what comes to mind, then grab my spiral notebook and try to make them a bit more coherent -- until there's a *feeling* or a kind of *meme* in the words when read/sung as a whole.

I ALWAYS write my music around my lyrics -- and I have seventeen notebooks full of them going back to when I was 14.

However, it's a different story in a collab -- but this is where the notebooks come in handy everytime. In this case, Nikos sent me some simple chord progressions and kind of set the mood and tone. So then I looked through my notebooks for what I thought would suit the mood.

So, on this page in the middle of my notebook were the few lines as Nik has posted above, tentatively titled "One More Sacrifice". The few lines of lyrics are surrounded by footnotes, comments, additional feelings, etc., and as I read them I figured they fit.

I NEVER attempt to analyse my lyrics in any literal fashion, but only for the feeling I can derive from them when heard in a song. Such feelings are often complex and difficult for me to translate literally anyway.

But, if it's any help, for this song, here's one interpretation from one of my closest friends (my son), and he says:

My Son wrote: That night's news was apparently filled with scenes of death and tragedy, big men giving big speeches and young people going off to kill other young people they've never met at the behest of those big men and their ambitions and all their corporate sponsors and so forth.

The first and second verses are kinda meant to be the thoughts of one of those young people -- perhaps newly arrived in some such hellish place.

"Boxes" are possibly analogous to those various political philosophies that are forced upon us all by our governments, and then ultimately translate to all those hundreds of thousands of boxes full of bones buried beneath Arlington National Cemetary in the USA, or some other soldiers' graveyard in some other foreign country. Maybe all those soldiers were made promises of 'heaven' in order to readily die for a cause, and took the road to hell to get there.

That's pretty bloody good

Another KVR friend of mine said:

It's all about religion I think.

Maybe both of those interpretations are valid to some degree. I really am not sure entirely.

Ultimately, I just want to get a feeling or feelings across that are somewhat less 'pedestrian' than your standard 'I love you baby' kinda stuff (tho I do write those kind of lyrics too)

Oh well -- just rattling on here with me second cuppa.

And to say that collabs are not always easy -- good ones take a hell of a lot of work, but they can be extremely rewarding I think -- as this one has been. I guess you have to love it. How often do we get to work together with such great talent anyway?

Good morning and thanks for all the great and encouraging posts mates! Bloody nice to wake up to!

Cheers,
Alex

polyslax · Post by **polyslax** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 12:56 am

Fan-bloody-tastic guys! Very well done, the sounds, the playing, the mix, great vox, loved the solo, very impressed!

zeoy meets xander: Just one more sacrifice