“We All Took Pictures”

Track Notes:
The inspiration for this song came from the line “Eddie always knew how to stop, drop and roll when we lit him on fire.” It popped into my head one day and I thought it was such a cool line I wanted to try and use it in a song. So basically, I wrote this song around it.

This song probably wins second place to the most words I’ve used in a song.

Recording/Mixing:

There are not a lot of instruments on this song – even though it sounds full to me.

It’s drums and percussion, upright bass, one piano track, and one sax track with a bit of delay.

When I was working on this song I had a scratch drum track recorded and I was playing along with to add the bass and piano parts. Instead of deleting this track when the final drums went in, I ran it through delay, over compressed it, and squeezed it though an amp simulator. I think this added a cool groove to the beat. Originally, I planned on putting that groove in with congas and other percussion stuff. But I liked the grittiness of the overcompressed drum track – so I left it.

I also used claves, a guiro, and some little egg shakers.

There are a bunch of vocal lines. The tinny vocals were over compressed, EQ’ed to death and then run though an amp simulator.

Copyright 2012: Seven Graylands


Lyrics:
Eddie always knew how to stop, drop, and roll when we lit him on fire
Mary always lit the match, she thought Eddie was a liar
Jim would show up at the house some time about a quarter past eight
But Jane always seemed to miss the fun because Jane was always late

We knew one day we’d miss
That house, that time, those friends
We knew one day we’d say
Back then, do you remember that day?

In the spring on highway eight
Bob drove his car into the ditch
Eddie and Mary hooked up that night
Even though Eddie thought that Mary was a bitch
Jules ate nothing but bread
And Debbie moved away
No one is really sure where she went
But we all took pictures that day

The day she moved away

Joe would always know someone who could get us into all the good shows
Jill would meet us later downtown, she’d say she didn’t want to go
Chuck would sneak around the back and try to give the roadies a hand
And Chuck always scored a groupie girl, he’d say he’s in the band.

We knew one day we’d miss
That house, that time, those friends
We knew one day we’d say
Back then, do you remember that day?

In the spring down on the beach
Mary said she’s sick of being used
Eddie and Bob hooked up that night
Eddie said he felt just a little bit confused
Jules sure loved his bread
And Debbie moved away
No one is really sure where she went
But we all took pictures that day

The day she moved away
We all took pictures
The day she moved away
We all kissed her
The day she moved away
We all took pictures
The day she moved away
We all still miss her

Eddie always knew how to stop, drop, and roll when we lit him on fire
Mary always lit the match, she thought Eddie was a liar
Jim would show up at the house some time about a quarter past eight
But Jane always seemed to miss the fun because Jane was always late

We knew one day we’d miss
That house, that time, those friends
We knew one day we’d say
Back then, do you remember that day?

We were all out on the bridge
Mary flipped and kind of lost her mind
Joe had failed to talk her down
She was fine because the bridge really wasn’t that high
Jules just ate his bread
And Debbie moved away
No one is really sure where she went
But we all took pictures that day

The day she moved away
The day she moved away

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