The fifth installment of the Self-Retrospect series, in which older, (hopefully) wiser me casts an eye back on some of younger, more naïve me’s more memorable musical moments. In this episode, I remember that time I decided to write a country song. Kind of.
In the year 2002, I wrote and recorded about 80 different pieces of music. About three-quarters of these were written and recorded prior to Wednesday, 5 June. That was the day the Leaving Certificate (the final exams Irish secondary school students sit) began. The lead-up to those exams remains my most prodigious period of musical output.
Granted, not a huge amount of time or effort went into the majority of that output. In most cases, I’d stumble across some sound or some sliver of a musical part – and within a few hours I’d arranged it into something and recorded it. A lot of the resulting pieces weren’t overly listenable. But some were okay. Even some of my best things came about in this quick, haphazard fashion. And still do: when it comes to making music I, as a general rule, like to get things done and dusted as quickly as possible.
Relative to that usual method of operation, making ‘Hate the Paint’ (completed in mid-March) was probably one of the most calculated and deliberate things I’ve done. It was most certainly not something I “stumbled” upon. I purposely set out to write and record a certain song. And, although it took me several weeks, I just about managed it.
That’s not to say there was zero spontaneity behind it. Indeed, its main inspiration derived from my friend Dave leaving his (newly purchased) acoustic guitar in my house. I did not own an acoustic of my own at the time, so I resolved to make the most of my temporary custody of it.
It’s funny how, in the liner notes for Projects, I very pompously declared that “making good music is— 0% spending lots of money on fancy gear”. I mean, I still think this is true – i.e., you don’t need any specific kinds (or classes) of equipment to be able to make good music. But with that little bit of pretension, I was in some ways neglecting how different pieces of musical equipment - particularly unfamiliar ones – can inspire different things. You certainly don’t need a €50,000 grand piano to write a song. But sat in front of a €50,000 grand piano, a songwriter is bound to come up with a different song than he would if left alone with a €10 ukulele (…and, of course it’s important to remember, vice versa).
My point is that without Dave having left that acoustic guitar behind, it is stupendously unlikely that ‘Hate the Paint’ would ever have come about. Although I didn’t buy that guitar… so perhaps my pompous point is still valid.
In any case, I had access to an acoustic guitar and I was going to write a proper acoustic song. With strumming. And, I decided, singing. Yes, up to that point, almost all of my vocals were delivered in that dry, almost-talking, melody-free monotone (you know, that one I continue to use all the time…). I was determined to do some “proper” singing.
The music came first though. A capo was placed on the first fret of that guitar (that may have been an arbitrary decision) and I strummed the hell out of it. I recorded a second track of the same, so that the two could be panned left and right, making use of that stereo thing I’d finally started to set as my default (before it had been rolled out only for gimmicky use). A third, “lead” guitar track was put in the centre. The result was a lot more “country” than I’d imagined I could ever get. But there was no stopping me now…
With the music in place, lyrics had to be written. Again, I was determined to write “proper” lyrics – ones that were suitable for the “proper” singing I was going to do. This took a while. With a lot of discarding and rewriting along the way.
Eventually, I got there. I have not idea where the “paint” thing came from, but once it was there, it stuck. As for what the song as a whole is actually about, well… Almost all of the songs I wrote around this time (and many of those I wrote since) fell into one of two categories: songs moaning about girls and songs moaning about myself. ‘Hate the Paint’ is not about a girl.
With lyrics written, all I had to do was record the vocals. Usually, this would be a case of trying two or three takes and then choosing the least crap one. But, again, this song was going to have “proper” vocals. It was also going to have harmonizing vocals. And it was going to need separate takes for the verses and choruses because those parts overlapped.
In the finished song there are, I believe, five tracks of vocals (although mostly you only hear two at any time – a high and a low). But, in total, I recorded more than 80 different takes. I became obsessed with getting it just the way I wanted. At some point, though, I decided it was done. And it sounded like this:
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[download 'Hate the Paint' mp3]
I’d like to think my vocal abilities have improved since then, but for 18-year-old me, that wasn’t too bad. It certainly displayed a bit more range than I had up to that point. Perhaps it didn’t have as much emotional resonance (for me) as previous ones like ‘Tiburón’ or ‘Breaking’, but the overall quality of the song was a peak too.
I performed it live for the first time at the Village in December 2005. Mr Ger Lynch accompanied me for the show. He played drums for most of the set, before joining me on guitar for the last two songs – with ‘Hate the Paint’ being the closer. The original plan was for us to both play guitar on both, but after the penultimate one, my guitar started acting up, so I decided to abandon it: Ger would play the guitar and I would focus intently on the vocals. Without having the quick strumming to worry about, I could put all my energy into singing the song. After all, this was a song that required proper focus and energy, in order for it to be sung “properly”.
I think it was my extra focus and energy that was my downfall. The added power I put behind the vocals somehow resulted in me going extra high – I think it was a whole octave higher than the high part on the recording. And this was too high. I sounded absolutely terrible and undid – in my mind – any good I’d built up through the set.
But, funnily enough, the feedback wasn’t that bad, actually. Perhaps people thought that was how I’d meant it to sound? Or perhaps people had started to get drunk at this stage.
Either way, I learned from this and scaled back the energy levels for subsequent performances, of which there have not been many. It made the way to Japan, but it didn’t last long. I haven’t played it at a show since a December 2007 gig in Nagasaki. I don’t think this has anything to do with me growing out of the song, or getting sick of it or anything. I’m still quite fond of the song. Instead, I think it might have something to do with what happened a couple of months later.
In February 2008, I recorded an entirely acoustic album, on which I made a fair few attempts at “proper” singing. I’ll probably get round to waffling about that effort in a future entry, but I think it’s fair to say that ‘Hate the Paint’ was an early hint at what lay in store. It’s possibly a shame that it then got usurped in the live repertoire by its descendants, who’ve filled up my usual acoustic jangle quotient. Perhaps, though, like ‘Flare’, it’s due a resurrection…
