Day 5: Synthesize Me
Synthesize Me:
We’d used a synth for two of the songs on our last album (I Thought Thunderbolt and Amcor Asphalt Plant Disaster), a MicroKorg. I like the crude, heavy tones you can get out of them (that said, I haven’t played any other syths, maybe they can all do it…), I think I was inspired by The Fall, but also Bowie’s ‘Heroes’, and the last song on Teenage Fanclub’s, Bandwagonesque. I wanted to push the bands sound a bit further in that direction as point of difference, but also because it’s good fun to play!
Olympic Mystery was born out of trying to use synth instead of guitars, The Dandy Warhols seem to do this with their bass lines, I wanted to get some of that ‘wall of sound’ action! I also started fooling around with putting the vocals through an EH Memory Man guitar pedal, but it wasn’t working for me, so I just recorded the vocals twice.
The song was essentially finished when I brought it to Lukey to lay down a drum track. He recorded it in just a couple of takes (in makeshift studio #5), I wasn’t sure what he had planned, but his beat slows the song down, and makes it epic!
- TV
Lyrics
Olympic Mystery –
Enough to make a nation sick,
Must be an amazing trick,
Olympic mystery has been sold,
The CEO has swept it all away,
They all wanted to be you,
Though now I can’t say,
March into the super dome,
To board your throne,
For champions alone,
Is it better just to walk the line,
Ride the pine,
And play the sportsman’s way,
It has been sold,
The CEO has swept it all away,
They all wanted to be you though,
Now you see, that that was another day,
Morals of the desperate sole,
Digging for gold destroyed your family’s name,
KGB burst in your home,
Sorry sensei,
You can kneel or stand,
Applauding the dead hand,
Move to where they don’t extradite,
That’s fine, ride the pine…
The New DeNiro –
Riverside an icy glow,
When my brother wished it was the same, you know,
Where the city runs the way it always ran away,
And we never thought that night would become day,
And light, with the promises of future bright,
Seem them lie through orange glow,
Getting by on quid pro quo,
We sit lay and wait to die,
Die, die,
Everybody’s looking for a hero,
Searching for the new DeNiro,
Fill there I eyes with looks of wonder,
Hide the mess that we discover…