Track 13 – If You Say
Once again, I got this idea while taking a walk. As I was walking, I said aloud to myself, “I’m gonna walk my legs off.” The image of someone walking so much that their legs fall off, like in Looney Tunes or something, was very funny to me. I start spinning out the consequences of walking my legs off. Suddenly the song was writing itself.
I used a lot of the same end rhyme in each verse, which is very fun. I made a lot of jokes and references. The lines move pretty quick, so it has a very impressive sound. Yet again, I make use of the unhinged narrator, who, while imagining his own dismemberment, builds an epic sense of grandeur before it collapses on itself and returns to mundane reality. I get a lot of positive feedback on this song, so I think it is a good one to end the album.
This song reflection project has been strange. It is super self-indulgent, but, as an “internet savvy” “artist”, I’m required to be self-indulgent. It has revealed to me a number of recurring themes, techniques, traits, that I may not have seen so clearly otherwise. I have been sitting on a lot of these songs for many years and it is good to get them “out”, even if they are not perfect. It has also been an attempt at overcoming several years of some kind of “writer’s block”, and I think it has been helpful.
I don’t think I will do this again. For my taste, it pulls back the curtain too much perhaps. Maybe pulls back the wrong curtain. However, I hope it has been at least interesting for a few listeners to see some of the songwriter’s thoughts behind specific songs.