Drip 1 ~ revolutionary idea

Week 1 ~ a fleshed out song

I’m a little nervous about starting this blog. It’s like a commitment. It’s like a first step down a dark road. I don’t know if I’ll keep up or if I’ll be true to the concept of this blog. But here we go…

This first drip is a reworking of a demo that I posted on my reverbnation site a while ago. “Waitin’ On My Revolution” was written in the Spring of the election season 2008. I had never written a political song or protest song before and I was just getting sick of it all. The rhetoric was chin deep from all sides and I just wanted MY voice to be heard. So, out it came in one sitting while I ranted onto a piece of paper. I had been playing around with the riffs and some chords that sounded like a hard rock song and also sounded a bit like a march. I liked the marching aspect of the song and thought it would fit the subject matter well.

The lyrics, as I said, came fast, but I had really been working on them for a while in my head. I had been wanting to use the story of Diogenes walking around in the day time with a lantern and searching for an honest man. I thought that that image was really powerful in these times where even the trusted are suspect, but I couldn’t think of a good way to use it and not sound preachy or goofy; then George Bush gave me a few ideas. I think we all need to have our own personal revolutions and rages against the machine and this is mine.

I like the form of this song. It’s very compact and tight and brings it in at almost 3 minutes on the nose. The form goes <intro – verse – chorus – verse – verse – chorus – bridge – solo – verse – chorus – coda>. I think it has a nice arch to it and grabs the listener right away. The guitar on the bridge was a very simple 3-note arpeggio in a Malaguena style, but with an in-tempo delay effect added, I got a sort of U2 vibe going and it sounds kinda cool. As I said this is a reworking of a previous demo so in this version I sped up the tempo and sang the vocals up an octave adding some Rolling Stones background hoo-hoo’s. I had been singing it in a kind of Leonard Cohen, deep vocal chant style that didn’t really sit right with the delivery of the lyrics.

So here is week 1′s drip – “Waitin’ On My Revolution”. Let me know what you think!

~ dg ~

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Waitin’ On My Revolution

Walkin’ down the road
Got a light in my hand
Sun is high in the noon day sky
And I’m lookin’ for an honest man

There’s gonna be a revolution
A revolution
There’s gonna be a revolution
A revolution
Waitin’ on my revolution
My revolution
And baby – heads are gonna roll

Big Brother’s steppin’ out
He’s got a twinkle in his eye
He’s got a hand in my pocket
He’s bleedin’ me dry
Call it war call it genocide
Call it what you will
People die Presidents lie
Blood and oil spill

There’s gonna be a revolution
A revolution
There’s gonna be a revolution
A revolution
Waitin’ on my revolution
My revolution
And baby – heads are gonna roll

Listen (to it)
Raise up your voice and
Shout it out (right in their face)
We’ve got no choice and
Take it apart
And throw it down
Against the wall
Who will be the first – the first to fall?

Guns and gasoline
Lay it on the line
Rip it outta my cold dead hands
Yeah baby I got mine

There’s gonna be a revolution
A revolution
There’s gonna be a revolution
A revolution
Waitin’ on my revolution
My revolution
And baby – heads are gonna roll

© 2008