Two Chelsea Buns (LITLR) - AndyR Original

[AndyR]

Another Songwriting Demo for FAWM 2022

So, here's today's little ditty.

(I don't know whether folks outside the UK would know what a Chelsea Bun is. I love them, they are extremely yum, and they go very well with the mid-morning coffee. Especially if you're at Kew Gardens... except they changed the caterers in the cafes and restaurants there a few years ago and they stopped doing them... boo...)

Two Chelsea Buns

Words & Music AndyR
--------------------------------
We ask you to stand by
Watch over our cares
We go to purchase
Some apples some pears
Fresh coffee grounds
Two Chelsea Buns
But when we return
We find all undone

The cradle lies empty
There's blood on the floor
The foxes have been here
And the cat from next door
The grass seed all spilt
The mousetraps all sprung
We trusted your judgement
But find you have none

Guilty as charged
Is that all you can say
There's only one of me
I've been busy all day

We trusted your judgement
But find you have none
So you'll have no share
Of the two Chelsea Buns

Copyright (C) 2022 A A J Russe. All Rights Reserved.

Time:

0:00

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[SharksDontSleep]

Chelsea  buns, oh yes, I love their swirly, currenty goodness. 
Very folky this one. Nicely sung, played & recorded.
I love the reverb on the vocals too.

Was this using Studio One?

[AndyR]

Yep, Studio One all the way.
A single mic (Rode NT1000), into my STUDIO 68C usb interface.

Recording guitar and vox live in one take on these demos so far. This one was tough, I nearly went for making one from several takes - but that would have added even more time.

I've got the Fat Channel plugin on the inserts on the input channel in Studio One:
Using the High Pass Filter (50Hz) and Gate (using the defaults - it seemed to do the job, the Mrs was in the room on the first demo, and I left it in for all the others)
This gets get baked into the recorded take.

When I've got the take I want, I copy it and perform any edits (cleaning up and applying gain changes to any sections that need it).

I've got the Pro EQ plugin on the track Insert, I adjust this for the song. In this case, another Low Cut (LC) -12db at 50Hz, and a 3.5 dB boost at 200Hz (Q 1.0) for the vocal.

I've got an FX channel with the Room Reverb plugin set to the Concert Hall preset for this song - no fiddling, just the preset. (That's probably the most useful bit to you!)
I also have another Pro EQ after the Reverb in this chain, the idea is you swipe the bottom off the Reverb because it muddies the mix - except there's only one track, not much to muddy, so the EQ's not doing anything.

And that's the mix for these demos.

It does go to mastering. Have you got Studio One Professional?
I've got a Project with all these demos in, they get mastered together.

The only non-PreSonus plugins I'm using are in the Project.
But I could probably get near the same quality with the Studio One stuff (it would be harder to set up the Mid-Side processing, though)

[Pete C]

A great song subject..the Chelsea bun. Not as popular in my part of the UK, we'd probably go for an Eccles cake, buttered.
I love the sort of medieval vibe !

Pete

[SE]

Classy prog folk, that,s a great take on the vocal.Loved a Chelsea bun with coffee too,  enjoyed  it lots well done.

[Hook]

To deny one the bun...your judgments too severe.
Great songs, fabulous recording.
Rock on!

[StephenM]

I am an over (or perhaps an under) thinker but the lyrics seem to express something much deeper to me...

having said that...dang dude!!!  (sorry for the slang) This is stupendous!!!  I like this one even more than yesterday.  This one I wouldn't care if I ever heard anything more ever and I am not a guy that often likes leaving just a guitar and vocal...The recording is amazing and the song is great.
I couldn't keep them all straight one day to the next like that.
I met this guy a few months ago (Rockie Lynne , a true Nashville pro, google him sometime) through a crazy coincidence.  He told me he writes a song every single day...then he sang me the one he wrote that morning on a 1938 acoustic (it was either a Taylor or a Martin, can't remember).  He played and sang it perfect.  My mouth was wide open.  Then he tried to hand me the guitar to play one for him.. I just laughed.... I was not going to touch that guitar.  I did play one of my songs off the phone though...ha, he was so nice about it.  His studio is totally pro... it's a big part of what he does now....record anyone and everyone and he does very well... but he knows what he is doing and he knows the business side too.... one thing is for certain I knew he was different the way he looked me in the eye.  I can't explain it...the cat had the goods but was so humble too... man.  what does that have to do with your song?  quite a bit I think...
this reminded me of that quality!  Well done

[AndyR]

I was commenting on Avocado's Number, saying "you're a crazy man", and I remembered these comments yesterday:

To deny one the bun...your judgments too severe.

I am an over (or perhaps an under) thinker but the lyrics seem to express something much deeper to me...

OK, I'm a crazy man

Hook - in my mind, there's a dead baby in this song, or at least a missing baby and blood all over the floor... whether the various animals have anything to do with it doesn't really matter, while the singer is observing the scene, he/she doesn't know what's happened, it's just the baby's gone and there's a whole bunch more

So, in my head, if all the singer is gonna do is sit down with his/her coffee and go - but YOU'RE not getting your bun, then there's summat weird going on!

StephenM - that might be all the deeper you were hearing?

Otherwise, I'm VERY happy you're hearing deeper, because it was all observed stuff (apart from the empty cradle!) from our lives/house to put a story together.

My wife loved it and fell about laughing when she heard it when she got home.

An example: I could take a picture of the forest of mousetraps around the bucket with the grass seed in the conservatory (they found the box and bag in the under-stairs cupboard before christmas, so we put them in the bucket in the conservatory until we could deal with it, or spring came, whatever). The grass seed has found it's way out of the box into the bucket, and is mixed with mouse-droppings. Every now and then one or all of the traps gets sprung and the little f&cker gets away!

It's that kinda thing.

But my story in the song is:

OK, I'm leaving you in charge while I get the fruit and something for morning coffee
When I get home... WTF?!?!
Where's the child???
And all this mess?
And all you can say is "guilty as charged, I was busy" (doing some inconsequential arsery I assume)
And you expect me to accept that?
How can I trust you?
OK, no bun for you


If you've got deeper than that, I love it that songs can tell different stories in different heads - WE complete the song when we hear it.
It doesn't matter what I think it's about, it's what the listener thinks.

[Hook]

Totally brother, I found the ending quite funny. I was getting a Violent Femmes , Country Death Song vibe until the end when it went all funny. Well done brother.

[StephenM]

yes, I suppose that in a tragedy, which this is about, at the very least the house is a mess and the baby is missing...at the worse I shudder to think. 
It's totally cool that your wife helped write this?  That is awesome...

My son (17) actually likes a few of mine and the Avocado's Number he thought was really funny, especially a couple lines where it cusses a bit. 

Looking forward to todays offering although after these last 2 I can't imagine you have any more rabbits up your sleeves! 
btw I signed up for RPM as Trevor was talking about it but I committed to 5 songs.