FAWM: "Bone Idols "

Bone Idols

Liner Notes

Glad to be back after a quiet few years! Determined to get a handful done in 2026, including revisiting some unfinished songs and half baked ideas.

This first track is one of these - I started writing this in Feb 2024 but didn’t get past the initial guitar and bass parts.

I had a melody playing around for the verse but no ideas for lyrics, and the guitars were recorded clean so I’ve used some amp sims on Logic rather than retracking.

The lyrics are a result of my six year old nephew’s obsession with dinosaurs, which has reignited my love of all things Mesozoic. He really is pretty incredible - whenever I see him he’s got a new fact about Quetzalcoatlus (not a dinosaur but flying around at the same time) or Spinosaurus to tell me about. When casting around for inspiration I started reading about the Bones Wars between Cope and Marsh in the late 1800s, which led to the discovery of some of the most famous dinosaurs we know and love - from Diplodocus to Triceratops. As with many human advances, fierce competition and bitter rivalry drove the pair to try and outdo each other, with plenty of sabotage and theft involved - it seemed a fun topic to write about!

The music is a fun chord progression paired with some nice double stops on the bass. I had a double length intro originally but decided to trim that back as it was taking a full minute to get to the verse 😂

I like the phase on the drums at the start and the urgency of the music matches the story quite well I think.

The bridge was made by cutting up various bits of the guitar and bass parts from the rest of the track which was fun to do - I like working with a restriction like that. Overall an enjoyable start to February!

Gear:

Logic Pro X Squire Jazz bass 1965 Fender Jaguar

Lyrics

Sunrise Been up all night Pay another guide Just to cut and run from your spies

Now we ride the rail road It's overgrown Torch the last site Just to blow a hole In your pride In your pride

But oh, what a rush! Live for the hunt While you die by the bluff And it’s never enough Dig up the dirt Just to kill your reputation So don’t get attached To a rival, it’s a war I will take it all, you Want to betray a bone idol I will bleed you dry

High stakes Validate Add another name To commemorate Your fame

Your bare faced lies, those beady eyes Got a fever for a femur You can’t leave those hills behind Behind

Our time is up They’ve had enough To violent ends They were condemned x2

Comments

@zecoopMod 1d

Great energy and just love all those open chords. Awesome melody that weaves deftly in and around. You had my head bobbing the whole time and I readily loved the back story!

@n1742 3d

Sounds so great Rob. Drum track, wonderful bass part and of course the guitars. Nice reverb on the powerful vocal. Looking forward to our collab very soon. and a great topic. Nice break down with loads of space and rhythm. Excellent start. Looking forward to the next few.

@oldlostjohn 5d

Cool and fun song. The bass is wild but never out of place. This was an inspiring listen.

@dbishopbliss 5d

Great sound to the track. I'm glad you gave some background because I would have no idea what the song was about otherwise. 😀 On the other hand, leaving it up to the listener it could almost sound political. Like news organizations trying to find skeletons in someone's past. Nicely done.

@cleanshoes 6d

The inspiration for this song is fantastic. Based on the setting and time period, I would have been tempted to turn it into an old-time Western ballad, but the alt rock treatment is so good. The driving rhythm and bass, unexpected (yet satisfying) chord changes, and vocal delivery all evoke the manic nature of the rivalry. "You want to betray a bone idol/I will bleed you dry" is such a good line.

@andybalham 6d

I enjoyed hearing the end result. Some nice guitar parts going on there. Here's to a future dinosaur expert.

@nadine 1w

Welcome back! First off: Creative song title. I like these playful jangly guitars, the energy... I actually like that bass and guitar are a bit different

@pumpkinhead 1w

Welcome back. This is such a solid track with loads of sounds and harmonies from the 80's. I like it. Your playing is simply great and I hear little subtle things all over. Very nice. Thanks 🙏

@audiogust 1w

I love the feel of this. The guitar and bass sounds are great. I immediately found myself singing a harmony to the bridge part. The one bit of feedback I'd offer is to have the bass part be a little less busy during the verse vocals. I think the bass part is great but it distracts from the melody but if you brought it lower just during the singing part and then had it go back to what it's currently doing between the lyric lines it would provide a really nice tradeoff of focus between the parts. You do this in the chorus and it's great there. Really nice job!