The Box - original by Ted

[Ted]

"The Box" © 1991 - 2022 Ted Johnson

Ted: Guitar, Bass, Synth (SY-1), "keyboard" sequencing, drum sequencing

Recorded, mixed, and mastered on Micro BR
String section created in GarageBand (and exported to Micro BR)
Trimmed, normalized, and high-pass filter in Audacity

The string quartet is half GarageBand (first and second violin) and half SY-1 (viola and cello)

The Box
(c) 1991 - 2022 Ted Johnson

"I'm sending you a box. Would you give it to your mother."
"Full of shadows on paper too beautiful; I can't bear to see them anymore."

"I thought she might want them, if not she can pitch them."
"But I hereby resign as the archivist. My memories are quite enough for me to store."

Chorus:
    Oh the box, it arrived, and if I had been thinking
    I'd have put the thing to my ear and heard ticking.
    Well call me a fool, with that pocket knife of mine.
    Well call me Pandora, but I cut loose the twine.

I love-letter letter bomb, a time bomb, my dad and mom.
Page after photo-album page from before the rage, Scotch tape yellow from age.

I thought I knew the truth, the whole truth, the bitter truth.
But they're touching and smiling like lovers do, saying "Love me, do."
    I only knew the bitter end.

(Chorus)

I always had suspicions my dad knew demolitions.
A blast from the past. The postmaster should pass regulations against this.

If it burned out my eyes, oh I wouldn't mind, 'cause love is blind.
But it burned out my hopes; showed me what a hopeless slope love is.
    I thought my sister should know.

Have a look in this box and then pass it on to mother.

This is one of several songs I wrote around 1991 about my parents, who divorced when I was two years old. I never properly recorded the songs, other than simple recordings on cassette tape with a recording "Walkman" style cassette player. I don't know if that cassette still exists.

Recording this one was always intimidating because of the "waltz" section. I didn't feel adequate to create a "classical" string section – I never even tried until now. It's probably cliché as hell, but I'm pretty pleased with it.

[Ron D Bowes]

Very Syd Barrett. A quirky song with cool lyrics. Love it!

[StephenM]

It seems very personal... it's an exceptional recording. 

super job and using "just" the micro br...  a very important lesson to me!  You have every right to be pleased about it....

[Farrell Jackson]

Well done on this song Ted! I agree with the Syd Barret comment. I enjoy hearing decades older songs written by Songcrafters and just now recorded. Be proud of this one!

[Rene Asologuitar]

Enthusiasm is a 10, very interesting lyrics.
Very dramatic and believable performance.
Well done.
Rene

[DarrenG / The Devil's Toupee]

It's a great song,musically and lyrically. I think the string section sounded really good. I loved it too!

[BerryPatch]

Excellent song Ted! Lovely harmonies and the strings are really well done, especially during the middle section. A great entry into the 3/4 fest!

[Hook]

Very cool tune, quite "out of the box"...see what I did there??
I dig it brother, well thought out and executed.
Rock on!

[Ted]

I thought maybe a Micro BR users would ask me how I got 3/4 drum patterns.

Since nobody asked:

I used 4/4 patterns with swing, and I slowed them down to two-thirds or one-third the tempo. (Has anyone here done this before?)

It got complicated. The song tempo is 150 BPM. In order to try out the drum patterns, I was constantly changing the tempo. If the 4/4 swing was based on quarter note triplets, I had to reduce the tempo to 100 BPM. If the 4/4 swing was based on eighth note triplets, I had to reduce the tempo to 50 BPM. (There are even some patterns with swing based on sixteenth-note triplets, which I auditioned at 25 BPM. But I didn't use any of those.)

And then I had to insert some silent 4/4 patterns (pattern 327 "BREAK") and manipulate their length with BPM; specifically a BPM of 66.66∞ – but the MBR only lets you have one decimal place in the tempo. If I used 66.7 or 66.6 every time, the timing would have drifted off by a tiny fraction of a second each time. So I alternated between 6.7 BPM and 6.6 BPM so they would average out to 66.66∞ BPM.

But, hey, it gets me away from my computer. I arranged the drums in the living room while my wife did our daughter's hair.

Very Syd Barrett.

I'm an entirely post-Barrett consumer of Pink Floyd. Could you drop a link to something that would help me get this comparison? I've been poking around on YouTube, and there's lots of Syd Barrett stuff, but nothing I've found by random sampling is reminiscent of this song. Or is it more of a thematic thing?

Very cool tune, quite "out of the box"...see what I did there??

Well done.

[TPB]

Very cool and yes I wondered how to program 3/4 drums so thanks for that song is well put together love the lyrics
Tim