NUR EIN
almost 5 years agopassed
2:49
Drag Me Around
Brown Word and the Big Whine image
Brown Word and the Big Whine

Entry from Drag Me Around in Nur Ein XVI.

Song must bridge your Round 0 and Round 1 songs

LyricsShow lyrics

Drag Me Around - Brown Word and the Big Whine
SpoilerOkay, doing one of these liner note thingies. This song bridges the first two thematically as well as musically, incorporating similar sounds and instrumentation between the two. The 3 would be mixed to flow into one another on the album. The theme of this song picks up on the judgements of the "you" character in Semiprecious and deals here with the disillusion of being pretentiously dismissed by someone who was formerly held in esteem + increasing awareness of falsehood and illusion among others in the 'I' person's world. This will segue into Pareidolia when the 'I' character is increasingly reading into everything and seeing patterns and connections where there are none.

I used to think you were special
Put you on my pedestal
I used to think you were non-pretentious
Coming at it on the level
I used to think you were the flame to my moth
Until all of the thrill subsided
I can see I was a little niaive
Methinks I was a tad misguided

I dunno why I let you drag me around
You act like I ain't worthy
But you won't set me down
I dunno why you gotta drag me around
You oughtta crown me like a queen
But you kick me like a hound

I used to think I was on top of the world
I'm kinda drowning in this fakery
Thought I was made of sterner stuff
But now I'm not even sure what's real

Their words are dancing in the wind
But I no longer hear the music in them
I'm tracing patterns in the shifting sand
This semiprecious illusion isn't worth a damn

I dunno why I let you drag me around
You act like I ain't worthy
But you won't set me down
I dunno why I let you drag me around
You oughtta crown me like a queen
But you kick me like a hound

Everyone talking in ciphers
You're all faces in the clouds
Today is the day is the day
Everyone talking in ciphers
You're all faces in the clouds
Today is the day y'all stop dragging me around

Reviews

2 posted notes

j$

Forum post

Hmm, not so keen on the verses (though I like the harmonies in the second verse very much) but the choruses have me captured. Joan Jett rather than the Runaways. EDIT: Actually I am thinking of Suzi Quatro in the choruses, which is meant as a compliment!

JonPorobil

Forum post

I like your approach to the lyrics. Your verse melody works great, and the chorus appropriately kicks into high gear. Did you actually increase the tempo during that chorus, or does it just feel that way due to the arrangement? The biggest problem with this song is the mix. Your previous two songs also had some mix issues, but that didn't stop me from loving them. This one's a different beast, I'm afraid. The guitar and the piano sound like they're from two different songs, and then the vocals on top have that "karaoke" feel that we all dread. I think the problem might be that everything is a little too dry. It's true that mixing is more art than science, so there's no one best way to fix this mix, but I have some suggestions you could experiment with. For the vocals, I think either adding a delay or increasing the one you have already (if you have one already; I honestly couldn't tell) would give you some presence that would suit the song's tone well. On a lot of my songs, I use one "slapback" delay that's set to like 100ms or 150ms and mixed pretty low throughout the whole vocal, and then a second delay synced to the tempo at quartner-note intervals, and I keep that barely-audible, but use automation to pump it up when there's a gap in the vocal melody. And then on top of that, some reverb too. I also think the guitar needs a little (or maybe a little more) reverb (but not the same as the vocal), and the piano needs, either yet another reverb, or some sustain pedal, or possibly a subtle delay effect, or maybe all three. Now, I get that this whole suggested effects chain may turn out to be overkill in this mix, but it's worth playing around with, because if you can get your ambitious arrangements to gel better in the mix, I really think you could go far this year.

Brown Word and the Big Whine - Drag Me Around | Nur Ein