When I Try To Be Me - AndyR Original (Remastered)

[AndyR]

(Remastered 22/10/2021)

And this is the last of the little threesome of In Your Hands, Little Thing, and this one, When I Try To Be Me.

It's in the key of 4th fret and was written just over a month later than the other two, on 19th March 1994.

I'm not sure I did eat all the cornflakes up (not a big fan), but I can confirm that they did throw (wooden) bricks at the window. Luckily neither of them had managed to score a hit before we figured out what they were trying to do.

When I Try To Be Me

Words & Music AndyR
Recorded on a BR1600
--------------------------------
Sun rises in the morning
But you say it's too early to get up
So we rock the cots and pick the woodchip
And generally mess the bedroom up
And you say
I want you to be happy
I long for you to be free
Why then do you stop me
When I try to be me

On the breakfast table
There is this awful muck
What happened to the cornflakes
Huh, Daddy ate them up
And he says
I want you to be happy
I long for you to be free
Why then do you stop me
When I try to be me

All the morning it was raining
And that was boring through and through
So we threw bricks at the window
To see what you would do

Dinner time is coming
But you won't let me near the feast
You say it's got to cool down
But that don't calm the beast

Bed-time is the best time
At least that's what you say
But I don't see how you could have a good time
When we're not there to play
And I want you to be happy
I long for you to be free
Why then do you stop me
When I try to be me

Copyright (C) 1994 A A J Russe. All Rights Reserved.

Time:

0:00

Volume:

50

0

 Stop   Play   Pause   Vol   Vol   Mute   Repeat   Download

[hardlock]

Good one!  Reached out and grabbed me throughout.  Nice progression and playing also!

[Greeny]

Really love that guitar - both the recording quality and the playing. Love those little turnaround motifs - very Bert Jansch / Davey Graham. And, of course, another beautiful vocal and slice of songwriting prowess. Your cupboard is turning out some killer tunes.

[Oldrottenhead]

absolute stunner, love everything about this, was a woodchip picker as a child too. 

[chapperz66]

Absolutely top notch Mr R.

Love it.

[Ferryman]

One man, one guitar, another stunner. Loved it Andy, love that little riff to start with and I also liked the way you held the listener's interest with just one acoustic guitar all the way through. Lovely songwriting, poignant lyrics, great performance. Just wow.

Wood chip wallpaper. Gotta love it, I decorated two houses with it in the 70s and 80s!

[Mike_S]

Really good Andy... a lovely folky feel and that is some great guitar picking. Really like the production on this and particularly the vocals sound crystal clear. That little guitar solo part towards the end is class.

Mike

[AndyR]

Cheers folks

It's funny how woodchip is striking a note. I wasn't a woodchip picker myself (I don't think I ever came across it when I was small), but our two certainly were. I personally love woodchip as a design choice... the current Mrs R does not! So I'm not allowed it... we still haven't decorated hall yet (it either needs replastering or... hey! woodchip would be good!)

But back to the subject... Oh my goodness, the cot rocking!!! The girl downstairs was VERY unimpressed. We got them calmed down over doing that, and then one day when she (the previous Mrs R) went in I could hear "What the F***!!!>?!?!?!??!" ... they'd figured out how remove a disposable nappy by digging through the front and throwing the bits everywhere

I'm really digging how this guitar is recording. Also, there's been a lot of learning about mastering on this and a band thing I haven't unleashed yet. Most of it happened on the band thing, but it got applied and explored further here.

It's all about using limiting to reduce transients on individual tracks during submixes - think I've seen Flash Harry talk about this somewhere recently - but wowsers it really does work. And then parallel compression - that's what's pushing the vocal out here (didn't really need it actually but it has another affect -  makes it sound more analogue). I actually had to go again and remix/remaster because I ended up with SO much everything that it had lost something... when we got it to this state Mrs R was all over it and said "post this one first" so I have.

Interestingly, one of the things I was struggling with on this one, because it was a one-take, first-take thing and I didn't think I could get everything "almost OK" again - one of the things I was struggling with was the little guitar solo... it's horrid!

As the song's written, it's meant to be another chorus there, and the thing really drags on like that. So we tried (rehearsing) dropping the dinner time verse altogether, which worked, but then you lose the day's full cycle in the story. Then suddenly I realised - don't bother singing on that chorus!! I did it twice down here in the living room over a couple of days and thought "yeah that'll work". But when the tape was rolling up in the broom-cupboard, I've got the 26 year-old bits of paper blue-tacked in front of me, and I nearly sang the flippin chorus - you can hear me hesitate slightly thinking "er... wot?" After that I recovered and did the "keep going" thing, except I got greedy and started improvising...

If you listen to it flat on the multitrack, there are two HUGE hesitant bits that really mess it up... but we sat there listening to it and realised the basic performance doesn't slow down or speed up anywhere, the guitar just meanders slightly inaccurately over the tempo. The bit you tap your foot to stays solid... So I had to find how to get that more obvious when I was listening... I found I could do it... I ended up pushing the vocal track (which has guitar too) and pulling the guitar tracks back during that little instrumental (and the middle - and for some reason that hides most of the problem!


NEways, glad you like it... I'll be posting the band thing that was meant to come before this in a few days. It was written a couple of weeks later (A Hundred and Twenty Pound came in between, and something called The Tall Men that I'm gearing up for, that'll be difficult). The band one that's coming used loads of these new tricks... I've been somewhat surprised at what it does to your mix/master. Oh, and it's got some more surprises especially for oldrottenhead - so, fair warning, DON'T turn your speakers/earphones up before it gets going!

[Jarle]

This is stunning, I wish I could do something like this. Outstanding vocals.

[TPB]

Well written and catchy the mix is great on this one well done
Tim