Rough Track #5: Birds of Paradise
A week after the very first version of this song was bounced, in October 2008, I requested the following:
could someone else sing this song and change melodies? i want ideas a-flowin. i am THIS close to 86ing this thing.
I kept that attitude for a year and a half.
Initially the song contained no percussion. Matt said, with the callous intonation that usually harbored encouragement:
a kick-snare-snare on this would make me literally vomit.
But Arthur recorded his drums and they were good so eventually this mix was made, in March 2009:
You will notice the lyrics and melody are quite different from the album version. There were more variations and complete reworkings following it, as I knew what the song was about—I knew the story that served as a source of the lyrics—but I didn’t know what lyrics they would be.
In September 2009, I posted this, which is only the second half of the song, as I had given up on the first half:
birdsofparadiseKIX3-partial.mp3
It was at this time that my enthusiasm for making this record was scourged (to Gibson/Caviezel levels) by my lack of confidence. I began to hate my voice and everything it did. My frustration fueled an astounding transference: I literally blamed the microphone. I disliked the shape and claimed it made me feel weird while singing these awful takes. It took all of Autumn and most of the Winter to take a breather and rewrite until we had something like what is on the album.
The last mix was bounced 17 months after the first.
