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BEHIND THE TRACKS: THIS BETTER BE FOR REAL

As with most songs, this one started with a girl. Most of my relationships go with Flash-like speed, and this was no different.. By that, I mean it was over before I actually knew we were starting. That’s a bad and cliched analogy, but it’s true. Because that happened to me before, I kind of let it go and thought “Oh, well, too bad.”

But the girl was different. We lost our moment by moving so fast, and in retrospect, I found myself being sorry I didn’t do things differently. Hence the chorus: ‘I wanna get to know you/For real this time’.

The rest of the lyric is filling in the details for those who want to know the story. And yes, that last verse (‘And I told you you could wear my jacket/In case you got cold tonight/You said “Wow, that’s a great line”/”But it’s the middle of July”/”And the sun’s still shining bright”’) was something she actually said. Except for the last sentence. She actually ended with “You idiot”. (Said in a laughing, funny, clever way. And with a wink. See, I told you she was awesome.)

As for the recording, the song changed somewhat. There’s still an old version on the Bandcamp page (and I think I’ll keep it up, too), so people can easily hear the difference. What mostly changed, except for adding all the hoopla, were the chords. Originally, the song started with a chord that I still don’t know the name of. (If someone does, it was: E:3 A:0 D:0 G:0 B:3 e:2.*) Arno, the producer, called it a “bastard G-chord”. He hated it, so we changed it around.

If you listen to the old version and the new one, you’ll notice there’s a bridge now, with a short new lyric. That was thought up on the spot, where Arno came up with the actual lines. It was too weird for me to add lyrics to a song I finished long ago, that nothing came out of my pen.

So the song ended up in a different tone, but it seems to ‘breathe’ more, now. Which is good. Arno wanted to rename the song ‘I Wanna Get To Know You’, but that felt so odd to me (since I’ve used this title for ages) that I didn’t do it. I understand why he said it, though. The title is never mentioned in the song, and it’s smart to use a title that enables people to immediately hear the chorus in their head. Call it pride or stubbornness, but the title remains the same.

All in all, the song means a lot to me and I’m very glad with the finished version. I can’t wait to play this live and hear people sing along with it.

* I just got a tweet saying it’s a Gsus2 Maj7. I have no idea if this is true, but it seems plausible.