Panacea
Coquina Marble - "Panacea"
(A new song! I think this one's pretty close to finalized. I have a feeling I might want to double-track the second and third verses and maybe add a teeny bit more variation to the mix as I get increasingly accustomed to using Garageband I've already altered the mix to "A Casualty of Seduction" from last week and succeeded in making it sound fresher but otherwise this is complete. This is actually the THIRD time I've recorded this song, so it's definitely tried and tested in regards to longevity. The first attempt at it sounded like a weird electro-samba track and the second attempt sounded like a missing track from The Cure's Faith. This time, it's got a relentless dream pop sound and quite a bit of reverb. It's probably the oldest lyric I have around, dating back to April Fools' Day 2003 when I was sixteen! It's definitely a product of that period this might have been the first song I wrote where I didn't have to look at a thesaurus, haha but it still means a lot. I wrote it for my friend Helena in an attempt to explain how I would always feel older than I should be and how I suspected I'd die earlier because of it. The mention of a "courtyard" referred to the one at school where we would have lunch! It's a bit of a death-wish song, too, but that was pretty typical of me back then, as some of you might remember. There's a third interpretation to this, too, that was suggested to me by another old schoolmate of mine I'm having a conversation with Time. As for the title, a number of you might know that it's a word that means "remedy" and if I'm not mistaken it's derived from the Greek. However, there's also a town 40 minutes south of here called Panacea. They have an annual Mullet Toss Festival there. It's pretty close to Sopchoppy, too, home of the Worm Gruntin' Festival. By the way, I flubbed a lyric I sang the original version of a line that should read, "time COMPOUNDS my frailty" instead of "time amounts my frailty." The latter's a bit of grammatical butchery since "amounts" should only be used as an intransitive verb. Eh well, I'll fix it soon enough. Not right now, though it took forever to get the vocal down. I was opting for a emotional delivery but it didn't quite work, so I went for a comparatively restrained take that gets warmer in the last two verses and I think it was much more effective that way. Anyway, I think I might have topped myself here, so do listen if you can. Tell me what you think, and let me know if there's any distortion at all. I'm having to use a crappy pair of ear buds to listen closely.)