I think that i’m under the impression that if i keep writing, something good might come out. Funny, eh? Do you know what amazes me? Arrangements. While i am always amazed at a solo guitarist’s ability to hold the stage with a single instrument, by that same token a well arranged rock band can totally awe me. I have trouble focusing on the fact that each instrumentalist has their own function, their own independent role in the creation of a song. I’m not much for arranging, seeing as it’s usually just me and my guitar, but my sudden fluency in the studio has left all of my songs open for additional parts.
But, it’s not so easy. Sure, i could layer on tracks of bass playing the root of the chord and guitars playing riffs in the same fashion, but arrangements that truly stun me add something with every part they introduce. A terrific example of this is “Goodbye Sky Harbor” at the end of Jimmy Eat World’s Clarity. The song is 16 minutes long, but essentially for the latter dozen minutes the band just repeats a single figure. It start with drums and guitars, and slowly a vocal comes in, and by the time you’re well on the other side of the 10 minute mark the guitars fade away leaving you with just a chorus of voices repeating the same pattern over and over. Eventually a new drum loop is introduced that has nothing to do with the one before it, and you realize that you’re not really listening to the same song – except it is the same song because everything you’re hearing emerged from what came before.
That’s the point of arrangements. Arrangements for my songs should be so that you can take away everything except a backing vocal and a bass and then build a different but familiar song back up from them. Those are the arrangements that feel like more than just a backing band plugging away at roots and downbeats. I’ll have to give it a try…
Scary thought? I’ll probably rebound from Selina in some awful way, whether it be a truly unhappy relationship or just some dumb hookup i’ll regret. Even knowing that i shouldn’t do either thing i somehow see them looming on the horizon. Probably what will send me into a tailspin is if/when she dates someone else, because that will finally send the message that we are officially over without a hope of putting it back together. I’ll make sure to post all about that feeling.
For the record, though we only dated for two months, up until my pneumonia i was sleeping over her place three weekdays and every weekend (but hardly ever a Friday, because we would always fight on Fridays). We joked early in our second week that it already felt like we had been dating for a month or two because we were immediately so exclusive to each other, so two months taken as a whole feels easily as intense as half of a year. The relationship certainly had more impact on my than my last six months of class did … i learned more, and i failed more.
So, she’s gone now. Knowing she isn’t just a few blocks away somehow makes this all easier. I feel like we’re magnets with a positive and a negative pole each, and that we keep drawing close to one another only to get the wrong ends lined up so that we push each other away again. But, it’s all pointless, because i can’t go back. It’s not pride, which she seems to suspect it is. It’s just… she’s okay with settling for me even though i might not be the best thing for her, but i’m afraid to settle for anything right now. I told her i’d look her up in four years if she’d like and i think i might have really meant it … because there’s something remarkable about someone who you like so much that you can put your own misery aside to be with them. I just can’t appreciate that right now…
That’s actually a line from her journal, and it felt pretty relevant. I saw in going through the last few days of entries that she linked to my site (worlds colliding much?), so i want to return the favour now (if only so you can see the other side of the story), but i’d like to ask her first because she gets a tad more personal than i do in her log. So, Selina, if you read this, can you tell me whether or not i can link to you?