The Sunday Poem/Song: Feel the Slide

Trying to break it up again, with a song instead of a poem.

I've been working on a CD called Longitude off and on for about four years. I get the urge to polish it up every once in a while, but mostly I let it sit. At this point, it's mostly mixing, EQ'ing, and mastering that is left to be done. This is, I think, the first song I have posted off of that CD. It's representative of the sort of instrumentation that is on Longitude, which is written for full band, rather than just as an acoustic album (this song features not one but two electric guitar parts, plus bass,drums, and backing vocals!).

 Feel the Slide

Well I, I have been running, I have felt the crunch of pebbles under my feet
I have brushed branches from my forehead, and I have kept the beat
And I have been jangling, my every breath broken glass in my throat and my chest
I have tumbled down hillsides with mud on my shoes and I have kept the best

Feel the wild world racing
Feel the rising tide
Feel the energy exploding
Feel, feel the slide

Well I, I have been loving, I have felt the catch when she came near to me
I have reached out and touched hair that was not mine, I have feared for me
And you, have you been mourning? Speaking the words that no one wants to hear
I have seen faces with grief in slow motion and I have seen a tear

Chorus

Listen, this is no revelation, this is no moment of truth
This is just the pulse of blood when your heart is pounding
Systolic and sweating in all its ageless youth
Listen this is no emancipation, this is no message from God
The beat is drumming inside your eardrums
Rushing in, rushing out, red hot, red hot

Well I, I have been falling, I have felt air biting at my ears as I flew
I have felt impacts pounding and my knees breaking: this is nothing new
Have you, have you been flying? Have you felt the edge as it pounds from your toes?
You leap and you seek and you reach for the future—this is how love goes

Chorus

– March 3rd, 2001

Click here to hear it, in all it's un-EQ'd glory:  

This recording was actually done on an analog 4-track way back when before I went digital. 

Play notes: it's in standard tuning, but I capo the 3-4-5 strings at the 4th fret. The song is in 5/4, so watch out for the timing! Fingerings are therefore a little weird. If you can puzzle this out, great. 🙂 Where I've written a standard chord, that means play that chord shape, but obviously, you won't get that chord because of the partial capo.

Verse: D9 1-2-3-1-2-3 C9 1-2 G 1-2, C9 1-2-3-1-2-3-1-2-1-2. 033200 to C9 to 033200 to 055400 and back to opening riff. Repeat for second line of verse. Chorus: D11 to 055400 to C9 to 033200 for each line, hold the beats on the first line, do fast on the second. End back on riff. Bridge: F9 to Am to F9 to D9. F9 to Am to Cmaj7 to G6. Riff for third line. Repeat for next three lines also.

What's it about? Well, mostly, about feeling like you are in the moment. I wrote it thinking about being a young teen running and riding bike through the underbrush in Jacksonville, FL; about the moment when I passed on the news that my grandfather had died to my mother, his daughter; about the first time you daringly reach out and touch a girl's hair