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©2005 Din Within
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Running Time: 14:37 |
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Additional Musicians:
Mike Ian (Drums, Additional Engineering) |
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I didn’t hear you
The truth is, I wasn’t listening at all
And if you continue
I might just bang my head against the wall
One after another
You’re telling me stories I know aren’t true
Why do I bother
To compromise with you?
You just don’t understand
We can see the truth in your eyes
It’s time to awaken the man
Who hides behind the lies
What are you thinking?
It seems like I lost you two stories ago
I’ve been talking for hours
What stole your attention and won’t let you go?
Do you remember
Contributing more than a vague, empty stare;
Or did you surrender
To staying unaware?
You just don’t understand
This is how you’re being defined
It’s time to awaken the man
From the Din Within your mind
All the rage you suffer through is pain in disguise
You lean on us to brace your feet of clay
Unfulfilled you make demands to be recognized
For brilliance and the more or less mundane
You just don’t understand
You've been blaming someone else
It’s time to awaken the man
And find the praise within yourself
What are you doing?
I can barely stand watching you stall
Hiding behind your facade of consideration
That’s grown so high it’s become a wall
You’re content to balance on the high wire
As long as you think there’s a net
You could quit this failing two-ring circus
If you could just grow a set
You just don’t understand
That your charade should come to an end
It’s time to awaken the man
So you won’t have to pretend
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Mark's Comment: |
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It's neat how songs come to life, almost writing themselves sometimes. You can read about the genesis (pun intended) of this song in Josh's comments, below - it's just as he described. Once the beginning of the song was realized, the first couple of parts just "fell out" - and even the first set of lyrics was composed with very little effort.
The "stream of consciousness" songs always amaze me; it's as if certain feelings and thoughts are somehow trapped and hidden within your mind, and suddenly something breaks down a wall and it all comes pouring out all at once. It's just a good thing that I happened to be sitting in front of the computer (and not behind the wheel of my car, driving to work) when it happened.
Once we decided on a lyrical theme for this song (one I like a lot, too) we got thinking about how to get the song to work as a cohesive whole. The tandem vocals are something I've always enjoyed, and it's fun to trade back and forth with Josh on the vocal parts. I also think it makes it more interesting for the listener, changing up the timbres, especially since the song features multiple themes that are related but also need some separation.
Overall, this song rocks. And it will make a great closer for the album (though live, we both see it as a killer opening number!)
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Josh's Comment: |
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This is the last song we wrote for the album, ironically titled Awaken The Man. I had just purchased a guitar synth converter and sound module to use with my Brian Moore synth guitars. I had been messing around with a certain "pad" patch, and came up with an ascending sus4 chord progression. Mark came over one day to hang out, at which point I broke out the guitar synth to show him. I played the sus4 progression to let him hear the cool pad sound I discovered on the synth, and his eyes seemed to light up. He said to me (something to the effect of), "Dude, let me get my hands on that progression! I have a killer idea for it." I transferred it to a MIDI track in SONAR and gave it to him to futz with.
A few weeks later he played what he had been working on using that progression, and I was blown away! A very big "Watcher of the Skies" type intro, a great verse idea... tons of awesome material to start working with.
Ideas started rolling out for both of us. Between us working individually and together we came up with a ton of very cool ideas, and managed to mesh them together quite easily. I thought that this song (becoming an epic) was going to be as time-consuming and hair-pulling as the others had been, but it wasn't necessarily so. Well, the lyrics were a bit tough in places, but the music seemed to roll out fairly quickly.
There was a small sticking point in the third verse; nothing serious, but I thought it needed a bit more color to it. The nylon guitar pattern was very cool, but needed a change to spice things up. Mark agreed, and within a few minutes I had a very dark, very cool sounding change added in there. Adding this new chord progression helped to flesh out the last bit of lyric issues we were having, and all was good in the world.
I have to say that as much as I hate to try and pick a favorite song on the ATM CD, this has to be my favorite. I love all of our songs, but something about this one really gets my energy up and makes me especially proud of what we've written. |
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