Astro Alloy - Eighteen

Available for streaming on Bandcamp, Spotify, et al.

Daniel

Lyrics

never once betrayed
by an authority you trust¹
a moral code with room for greed
that fits just like a glove
the stories culture wrote for you²
the world as it appears to you

you're insecure in simple things
the ones people expect
in classrooms you just dream of girls
and cis vanilla sex
everything feels possible
when nothing's been impossible

  you've never felt scared
  to be yourself³
  raised in wealth⁴
  safe and sound
  never vulnerable

tell someone your secrets
and they'll only like you more
they'll thirst for the attention
that they didn't want before
flowers open up to you
as easy as you want them to⁵

so bear your healthy heart
and know this risk will have reward
sly enough to earn her trust
and leave her wanting more⁶
confident in what you'll say
without an ounce of irony

  you've never felt scared
  to be yourself
  raised in wealth
  safe and sound
  never vulnerable


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¹ 978-1595230324
² 978-1-57731-593-3
³ 0-465-05652-0
⁴ 0-446-67745-0
⁵ 978-1598870923
⁶ 0-06-055473-8

Song Notes

this song is inspired by a friend of mine i knew from elementary school. he was (is?) straight, white, cis, into sports, Christian, conventionally attractive, inoffensively funny, you know the deal. he was extroverted, confident and kind and i fucking hated him for it. why? because i was a weird pale lizard freak! and i could barely handle this fucked up world while he could easily talk to people and play basketball.

the problem was me, not him, but that was going to take me a verrrry long time to figure out. but maybe it wasn't even my fault. i was coping terribly with all the bad stuff i had to deal with as a child and i wish i could make it all disappear with a magic wand.

i'm sure he's lived through years of real, complex struggles, wins and loses; i was obvlivious and unwilling to give him that credit. i have no idea where he is now, but i hope he's thriving.

Recording Notes

this song was originally on acoustic guitar and it was boring. recording it on electric guitar instead, still wasn't right. the magic: do both!!

i want you to imagine me and Michael in the studio for an hour fucking around with a guitar slide trying to get a cool slide part for the song. yes, it was fun!! i remember we played around with different tunings. no, i don't remember what the tuning was...

i think i used the Electro Harmonix Lumberjack pedal for this one. really weird pedal, but i like the challenge of figuring out how to make a pedal work (see also: analogizer). i used just about every EHX overdrive/fuzz/distortion pedal on these songs.

Next: Turn Into Jelly