20 December: About Slipping
Day four, which means it's time to talk about Slipping.
- Ah, Slipping...Originally, I wrote lyrics for an album that, at least to me, was conceptually all bound up together. Twelve tracks, starting with Slipping and ending with Not Complaining. The five tracks on Each to Each all had a place on that album, actually. So, when I think about Slipping, it's always with a bit of nostalgia for that original album. Eight of the songs I'd intended for the album have been finished enough to start playing, and the other four are in various stages of draft.
- Whilst out shopping in the earliest days of the band, I found a little toy megaphone that I fell in love with. (It's purple, it has lights, and it can make me sound like a robot. Obviously, I needed it.) As we started building this song, I knew that little megaphone had a job to do. I'm pretty sure I literally bounced with glee when I realised this. Of course, this song has given us an "opportunity" to learn about the peculiarities of sound and using voice effects at different venues. I have loads of gratitude for the people running soundboards who have taken the time to make this work out. And I have lo-tech workarounds for venues where the people on sound aren't up for it. But the little toy megaphone has proven to be an unwelcome sight for them all, so I'm afraid you won't ever get to see it in action.
- Part of why the megaphone had a part to play was that it gave lines a distant, staticky effect. This is a song for those times you look in the mirror and don't recognise the person you are today. The nights you sit and wonder what happened to the people you knew and the people you were. Those stretches where you don't feel rooted in this life, in this world. Where reality feels unreal and you wonder if you're going a little mad. When you're not sure whether it's you slipping or everything else...
- Planning for this video (scripting, costume/makeup design, etc.), which ought to be our fourth, is underway. Once we've got the other two that are in progress at points where we can step back and let others carry the work, we'll get working on this video.
(Same invitation as on the previous songs: Hear something else in this song? Find us online and tell us what you hear. I'm always curious. And you've got every right to find your own meaning in the song. It's not done until other people find themselves in it.)