New Song: Glass Eyes

Hello everyone

I've been writing and recording this song sporadically over the past couple months and I was finally able to finish recording it today. It's topically about a canine companion of mine that passed away a while ago, but I think the themes covered in the song can be applied to other aspects of life as well.

The song can be found here: http://www.myspace.com/colinkohtzistight and is called "Glass Eyes." It's pretty long. It used to be even longer, but I was able to cut a minute off of it. It's a simple song. It was my first time trying to record with an actual upright piano, and I am kinda bummed with how the piano sounds. Any comments, critiques, and ideas are welcome

Here are the lyrics:

Veterinary skills and rosaries

Fortify the walls with roots and trees

16-some odd years is not that long

Stay one more and we'll say it's not wrong

Through stained glass patterns you can't hide me

Your battle-weary eyes are quite haunting

Your name tag's on the counter, collars calling

You're poised to poison now, candlelighting fades

Fades away

Frigid hearts and noses colder still

Melt away and turn to gutter spill

A long long time ago I brought you home

Scratches on the door I left alone

Through stained glass patterns you can't hide me

Your battle-weary eyes are quite haunting

Your name tag's on the counter, collars calling

You're poised to poison now, candlelighting fades

Fades away (repeat)

I have a tough time with sad animal songs... with people you have to be tough. If only for everyone else. With dogs and cats, all bets are off... I'm a basket case over this stuff. I can barely walk past a lost dog flyer without getting very sad... I'll try to listen later when I'm feeling a little tougher but just reading these lyrics made me all weak-kneed and morose.

Hey man

Well once again i really like this..... the guitar recording is a little muddy BUT personally i like that....kinda lo-fi and has a grandaddy feel....im a big fan of them too

really REALLY love you're layered vocals.... do you sing and record them yourself or do you do it once and use a pitch shifter? sounds amazing no matter what but if you do them properly then your pitch and timing is perfect

excellent work my friend

x

Aw....

If it makes you feel any better, my dog had a very happy life and it was really his time to go. This song isn't really about how sad I was when he left, but more about how weird it is when something in your home is missing; it could be a dog, a friend, a significant other, a couch, or anything.

I hope you can listen to it someday Sorry for making you morose.

Heh...it must be super low fi, because I used an upright piano, not a guitar. I wanted it to sound a tad muddy, but not as messed up as it ended up coming out unfortunately. I am very inexperienced when it comes to things like this, so chances are I'll use an electric keyboard to do the piano next time.

About the vocals: thanks for your kind words . I sing and record them myself manually, usually I don't record more than four or five layers of vocals. It gets to be very tedious and time consuming at times. I really like the effect though, so I keep at it.

ha oops that was my stupidity - i was supposed to write piano - god knows why i wrote guitar.... it is 1.30am so i guess thats my excuse!

x

It made me cry...

We've all had pets we've loved and lost :-(This was really beautiful, I'm sorry for your loss. My little doggie LT (Little Toughie) is a little {censored}su, he's just 7 so I hope we have many good years left... He's my buddy and he goes everywhere with me. I carry him in places and no one seems to mind, he's really sweet and always gets a good reaction from everyone.

How did you do the vocal stacks on "Annus Mirabelis" if you don't mind me asking? Super high quality stuff! I love your voice

Recording sounds great, except I hear a lot of breathing/lip/sibilant type noises at the beginnings and ends of phrases. Do you use a pop screen on your mike? Also, if you're using compression, it's possible that there could be too much. If you really wanted to be anal retentive, I suppose you could fade in/out some fraction of a second of each phrase to cut down on the sound.

That's pretty trifling stuff, though. Nice work.

Aw.... If it makes you feel any better, my dog had a very happy life and it was really his time to go. This song isn't really about how sad I was when he left, but more about how weird it is when something in your home is missing; it could be a dog, a friend, a significant other, a couch, or anything. I hope you can listen to it someday Sorry for making you morose.

Oh... it's OK... better than not feeling anything at al, that's for sure. It's just that, for whatever reasons, my emotions get really raw when animals are involved. You know, I haven't watched the orginal 30s Lassie movie in 20 years or so -- even though it's got a happy ending -- because poor Lassie has to go through so much... the last five minutes or so are pretty much unbearable to me.

People... I can take or leave.

First I recorded the basic melodic voice, then I layered on vocal harmonies individually. It takes quite a bit of time, because I have to mentally figure out which directions I want the harmonies to go in. The good part is that the more voices you have, the less you can hear the little mistakes in each vocal track.

I didn't notice this until you brought it up.....

I use a pop filter, but maybe the breathing noises got through because I had to draw in big breaths due to the length of the vocal phrases. I'll try to edit it out in a way that doesn't make it sound artificial.

With a subject matter such as this, this song could have turned out to be something entirely different! As it is, you

Oh... it's OK... better than not feeling anything at al, that's for sure. It's just that, for whatever reasons, my emotions get really raw when animals are involved. You know, I haven't watched the orginal 30s Lassie movie in 20 years or so -- even though it's got a happy ending -- because poor Lassie has to go through so much... the last five minutes or so are pretty much unbearable to me. People... I can take or leave.

I'm exactly like this too.......when people die in movies I could care less, but when a dog dies, I am reduced to shambles.

There's probably a market for dead dog songs. Does anybody know? This song seems to have hit a nerve with forumites.

People can't seem to get enough about their pets. That hack newspaper columnist made a mint writing a maudlin book about his annoying dog Marley, which they turned into an insipid film. Made about $150 million. People eat this stuff up.

I gotta write a dog song now. People will probably see through it though. I'm not really a pet person....

You should get a dog, it will completely change your outlook about pets.

No matter how much your mom, dad, girlfriend, or boyfriend loves you, nobody will love you as unconditionally as your dog does. Nobody will be as happy to see you when you walk through your door after a long day at work. It doesn't matter if you are Gandhi or Hitler, your dog will still love you. It is because of this unconditional love that dogs give us that we feel so devastated when they pass on.

("Marley" was {censored}e though.........there are much better dog movies out there.)

I Googled dog songs. There are many, many, many from a number of great artists. I liked Cat Stevens' take best:

(I love my Dog)

I love my dog as much as I love you

But you may fade, my dog will always come through.

All he asks from me is the food to give him strength

All he ever needs is love and that he knows hell get

So, I love my dog as much as I love you

But you may fade, my dog will always come through.

All the pay I need comes shining through his eyes

I dont need no cold water to make me realize that

I love my dog as much as I love you

But you may fade, my dog will always come through.

Na, na, na, na, na, na, nana...

I love my dog as much as I love you

But you may fade, my dog will always come through.

Na, na, na, na, na, na, nana...

I love my dog, baby, I love my dog. na, na, na...

I love my dog, baby, I love my dog. na, na, na...

Nice song. Sounds a lot like one of those Death Cab for Cutie melodrama/psychodramas. Piano and vocals both sound great. The vocals are almost over-intimate so a little mouth noise comes with the territory but you could tidy it up in an audio editor without losing much.

I actually quite like the piano sound having listened to it a good few times - there are many ways to record - mics inside by the strings....... or what i quite like is to open the top to get a little more noise and put the mics kinda at the position where your ears are (maybe slightly wider for stronger stereo effect) if the piano sounds good where you are sat then like the mics have the same experience..... whether its the best way to record it i dunno but i just like what sounds good to me..... maybe a little more mess around with eq after recording may also help a little

still love the track and all your work my friend

x

This is a beautiful song.......perhaps the best I've heard posted here in some time.

The vocals are stunning, both in performance and in production. You might consider some detailed automation to get rid of a few mouth noises. I would leave the breaths.....maybe just take them down a bit.

Don't touch that piano. When you finally drop it out at the end it made me open my eyes back up and really listen to the fade away ending.

I agree that the piano actually has a charming, "warm," lo-fi type of sound. I think it works well with the vocal production. Great stuff here once again man. You've got the layered-vocal thing dialed in very nicely...and your vocal tone is really wonderful.

As for the "mouth sounds" you can get rid of those pretty easily without making your vocals sound unnatural. Don't eliminate the breaths, just zoom in really tight on each vocal track and examine the spaces right before each phrase...you should be able to cut out the mouth-sounds without cutting into the breaths by more than a ms or two. You can also add tiny fades to the track if you want the breaths to be less pronounced.

Great job man...as always!

Thanks for the feedback and advice man

I agree with pretty much everything that's been said: sounds awesome, the piano's fine, maybe take out a little mouth noises

Keep up the good work. I always look forward to hearing your songs when you post them.