FAWM: "Back Soon"

Back Soon

1 week ago by @deadhead

Liner Notes

This song is part of the rock opera I'm currently working on. Its working title is #jimmy (no influence from The Who here...). Its about the growing class divide in society and how the elite is weaponizing social media to placate the masses while they consolidate power for themselves.

This album uses a Greek tragedy structure to its story telling to evoke a feeling of catharsis at the end (emptiness of emotion) as our protagonist breaks free but fails to convince anyone else, and falls exhausted back to the warm comfort at the expense of a lack of freedom.

This is the first stasimon from my upcoming album. A stasimon is sung by the chorus between songs in the tragedy and serves as running commentary or explanations on what is happening. Sort of like a narration.

In this stasimon the chorus is responding to hearing our main character learn about the problems with a society that's too focused on their own comfort to care about anything else. You can listen to the song that comes before it here: https://fawm.org/songs/320523

The chorus is split into four voices:

I am right, its everyone else who’s wrong
It doesn’t affect me so its not my place
Its too much effort, I’ll do something easy
Even if I do anything it won’t make a difference

Yet they all agree in this piece that our protagonist is just going through a phase and that they'll be back to their warm comfort, ignoring all the issues in the world, before long.

The chorus is supposed to be SATB but... I'm a bass, so definitely demo quality on the soprano pitch shifted parts here!

I also decided to tune my bass down to drop C since I didn't want its phrases to jump up an octave midway through. But listening back, it shifts the tone way too much imo. We'll see what I decide for the final recording 🤷🏻‍♀️

#prog

Lyrics

[Intro]

Instrumental over "AABA" sections. A section: _____ ____ __________ _____ ____ __________ _____ ____ __________ _____ _____

Section A section replaces the last two lines with: ___ ___ ____ ____

B section is similar to A section but down a fifth _____ ____ __________ _____ ____ __________ _____ ____ __________ __________ _____ _____

Last A section has the following ending _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____

[Verse 1] That guy’s way too loud Bringing his problems here I won’t solve your pains

What he says may be true But it won’t make a change In-stead I’ll sip my drink

[Chorus] The feed will drown him out The glow will bring him right ______ back.

[Break] Instrumental over "A" section

[Verse 2] He’s too young to know the pain I’ve lived through worse before And learned to stay sane

He’s got a good idea We can always do more But this room is nice and warm

[Chorus] The feed will drown him out The glow will bring him right _______ back.

[Outro] Lots of "Oh"s over "AAB" sections

First A section is modified: __________ __________ __________ __________ __________ __________ _____ _____

Final B section has the following ending: _____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____

Comments

@ductapeguyMod 2d

With a half decent dramaturge, and tons and tons and tons of work, I can already see that this piece would slay at a Fringe festival. I loved how the long jams establish the major themes that I assume are going to unfold through the rock opera.

@nagavaeoe 5d

Really cool chord/harmony work. I'm sure this took some planning/composing. You never know where it's going to go which grabs your attention. Reminds me a little of old Pink Floyd, but more complex. Some fine playing here too!

@stewdean 1w

So much work has gone into this. Very prog with the whole album, epic feel to it. To be honest, the starting bit could be shorter as it tends to revisit the same idea, and I was waiting for the words. It feels like Queen meets the Beach Boys/Steely Dan with some Tull in there. It's hard to make prog more condensed, but, well.

@wynia 1w

Fun chords there! The main hook is very memorable. I love all the improv around it, with very impressive guitarring and keying and four part vocal harmony!

@deadhead 1w

Thanks for the listen, it was a lot of fun to put together!

@sync 1w

Dude what a treat - love that overture! I agree with @tcelliott - digging that midrangy Brian May vibe on the guitar. Really interesting and original progression and lyrical concept. Looking forward to hearing more...

@deadhead 1w

Thanks, I'm happy with how the progression turned out on this one. I'm hoping I get inspiration to finish off this album this FAWM.

@tcelliott 1w

Loving the guitar tone and playing, LOADS of great guitar bits in this one. And that tone is killer (I was gonna say Killer Queen but only a little.) Love the arrangement, too. This is well constructed but mostly just sounds so good.

@deadhead 1w

I'll never say no to a Queen comparison! Thanks for the nice comment.

@sapient 1w

Ooo, a long one! I love it when I see that. So many songs here are 1.5 to 2 minutes, and just as you're getting into them, they are gone. Really digging the slightly proggy overture to kick off with. What a delight to get an extended instrumental like that. And that you come back round to it after the first verse and chorus. I love opera but have never found much enjoyment in musical theatre (why is that, I wonder? Always thought it's abit odd of me...) but damn, I'm buying a ticket and sitting with @aeye at the premiere of this!

@deadhead 1w

Gotta give time for the themes to develop! Though listening back, I now feel like I didn't develop them enough but... that's a problem for after FAWM.

Ya know, I used to love musical theatre a lot more, but you go me thinking that I might be switching to appreciate opera more so. Couldn't tell you why though!

I'll be sure to reserve VIP seats for you and @aeye at the premier.

@aeye 1w

This was great, where can I see this Rock opera? (I will not over buy and scalp tickets)

@deadhead 1w

No please do scalp the tickets. Then you'd be my head of marketing as you sold them all off!

@nadine 1w

What a journey! Your intro was quite long, and then when the choir kicked in, I got that catchy piano theme in my head. And now I'm listening to very interesting descending jazzy progressions, and a key change (?). Being all honest, I did not expect this song to find a harmonic home, but it did. And it's a great one!

@deadhead 1w

Yeah, there's a couple key changes throughout. Main theme is in a weird Am / Dm duality. Then it transitions to Dm / Gm part. The choral section is then in A major. But lots of borrowed chords throughout. I've stopped being so lazy and all the chords are in the chart now.

I guess the harmonic home was "easy" since the main chord change (F -> Dm -> E7 -> A) was taken from the song preceding this one in the album (Faded Hue in my FAWM profile). I guess its all those borrowed chords that throw it off for bits before coming back to the original phrase.