"Prevail" - Original by Ted

[SE]

Yes this is cool, great theme for a tune, the vocal has a REM vibe but the guitars sound  much more modern, loving the sound you've  conjured up with you effects, well done, great  listen!

[des0free]

This is great all around!  Songwriting, playing, singing, recording, mixing!  The full package.  Love the guitar sounds and vocal sung with authority. It shows this song has been with you for a long time - you are playing and singing confidently and with great timing/feel. Great job!  Enjoyed much!

[Ted]

Thanks everyone for your thoughts and feedback. I told myself I wouldn't reply to any comments until I had gotten caught up in the Latest Songs list.

I particularly like the line - I brought the fire back to life with just my breath and my bare hands.

Thanks. I put a lot of weight on that – both musically and personally. I'm glad it landed with you.

I rode aboard a boat with 16 of those bastards on it... for about 3.5 years... glad I was there to make sure it didn't happen... (as in apply certain spiritual warfare to help the trigger fingers stay subdued until the July 4th bbQ at which time they would be too stoned to think about it anymore).

In Political Science, we worried a lot about submarine commanders, with the authority to start a nuclear war if they thought no news meant bad news.

I also studied nonviolence, and one of the under-appreciated forms of nonviolent resistance is simple bureaucratic obstruction: making it difficult for hotheads to push the buttons, not by chaining yourself to fence, but with paperwork or other means – such as keeping them stoned during critical events.

Love how you tie in the two ideas - the war and the personal story

I might have over-emphasized the cold war in my description, because I never thought of it that way. I just found "prevail" to be a strange way of saying "We'll both lose, but you'll lose more." What's interesting to me is that I do have a song where I intentionally tie together the Cold War and a personal story: "The Missiles of October"

I know the built-in Boss BR effects cover most bases and if I'm in a rush I still use them

Really? I avoid using them because I find them tedious. I use pedals because I'm impatient. Interesting.

vocal sung with authority. It shows this song has been with you for a long time

I hadn't thought of that. I wonder if the "authority" in my voice might be partially annoyance. I recorded the vocals in our car, in the garage, thinking I'd have some privacy and good acoustics. But for that hour or so, the garage was incredibly popular – especially with our gardener, who kept coming and going to fill up a bucket with water from the faucet in the garage. I was in an awful mood when I did the vocals.

Thanks for listening and commenting!

[chapperz66]

Cool song, Ted.  Lyrics and vocal are great, and the tone of those guitars is superb.

Paul

[Bluesberry]

There we go.........It's got a real Canadian sound........I'm just joking..or am I?  A wholesome and rocking groove.....smoothly jagged.......a real great song....love the slightly gritty vocals

[Ron D Bowes]

Got me from the start. Great riff and cool vox. Very much my sorta track. Alice Cooper vibes I am hearing.

[Oldrottenhead]

Loving the sounds you're getting out of your guitars. I'm getting an REM vibe too however I don't know why as you sound nothing like them. 😂 great song gaun yersel bro.

[StephenM]

I feel I need to chime back in without giving up too many secrets.  I mentioned launching missiles, nuclear missiles... and in fact I did ride a boat with them killers on there... spent months and months underwater...
so just to help everyone out.  The CO ain't gonna launch without order ever.. believe me... they have ways to get the message to the skippers.  If a CO went rogue, he could not do it alone... there are too many checks and balances... and every damn sailor aboard is highly trained and understands what is going on..
and if this ever did happen, the whole world was already fucked.  Sleep tight... no worries.

one last thing... I used to spend hours on my off time riding exercise bikes, rowing machines, stair climbers, lifting weights with about 3 inches of metal between me and them bastards.  I kind of thought at times, as I was cranking out some John Mellencamp or Kansas in my headphones, "no one is fucking with me tonight."

[Ted]

Alice Cooper vibes I am hearing.

I almost never pass up the chance to mention that I went to the same high school as Alice Cooper (Vincent Fernier) – although 15 years separated us. I don't list Alice Cooper as a strong influence, but there must be a little Alice in me.

If a CO went rogue, he could not do it alone... there are too many checks and balances... and every damn sailor aboard is highly trained and understands what is going on..
and if this ever did happen, the whole world was already fucked.  Sleep tight... no worries.

That's somewhat reassuring. Personally, I never imagined the simplistic version of a deranged CO just deciding to start a nuclear war, and the only thing between him and the big red button was his password. However, it's not particularly reassuring knowing that if a shared delusion spread to a sufficient number of service members on a sub, they could collectively launch a nuclear missile. And what is that number? 10? 30? 75?

It's got a real Canadian sound

Well I did enter New Hampshire immediately after spending a good chunk of time in Canada on the road trip. It must've left a mark on me, eh? I did a full circumnavigation of Lake Superior starting from Sault Ste. Marie, then Algonquin Park, Montreal and back into the USA.

I remember Wawa in particular, only because WAWA is a cynical expression that development aid workers sometimes say when a project in west Africa fails spectacularly: West Africa Wins Again. This long motorcycle trip was meant to be my way of reacquainting myself with America after two-and-a-half years in Cameroon, and with deeply ambivalent feelings about what I accomplished there. I kind of loved that there was a city (and a chain of gas stations) called Wawa.

Want to hear something accidentally interesting? At the very end of the song, there's a sustained chord. And then there's a cheesy Micro BR drum fill that is off-beat. If you listen to the sustaining vibrato on the right, it is also off-beat and it syncs up perfectly with the drum fill.

[Greeny]

This is excellent on various levels. The lyric is brilliant - a strange mixture of personal and detached, but utterly convincing. And it becomes even better with the cold-war context as a back-drop. I really dig it.

Musically, the stand-out for me is the guitar tone of that main riff in the left channel, and the way the bass makes it really punchy. Just goes to show that it's not about expensive fx - more about what you do with them.

Really like that last bit where the chords jar a bit - nice tension.

It's a deep, authentic song with a kick-ass chorus.

Fantastic!