I'm pretty sure this song started with the main 4-chord, descending rhythm guitar motif in the intro and verses, and I think I had those chords kicking around for quite a while.
Like years, maybe. I forget if the keyboard melody or the bass line came next, but if it was years in the making, it may well have been a snippet with the keyboard melody laying around for years.
I always had a "snippet" tape ready to go in the 4-track, on which I recorded ideas and then may have put other parts on top of to see if I thought there was any potential. I don't know if any of those snippet tapes are extant, but there can't be too many of them. I wasn't all that prolific. Not that I'm terribly interested in what's on them.
The acoustic rhythm guitar sounds like it's running through a Small Clone chorus box, one of the first stomp boxes I ever bought when I was in high school, and it's the same one Kurt Cobain uses on songs like "Come As You Are". And reverb.
Oh, and reverb! When Boss released its first reverb stomp box, that was a huge thing for me. Almost every vocal and guitar part is going through reverb. And compression. I neglect to mention these effects because they are more subtle; assumed even. All voice, guitar and bass parts are running through a Boss Compression/Sustain pedal.
With the first collection of songs I recorded during college, I remember I ended up re-recording all the vocal parts and some guitar parts one semester, and now I remember why: the reverb pedal came out. As bad as my vocals are, without reverb and compression, they were even more excruciating to listen to.
It may be hard to appreciate now because all these effects are readily available now, included with multi-track recording software, I shouldn't wonder. But back then 4-track tape recorders didn't have built-in effects, digital processors were unheard of, and pro reverb processors were expensive. So it was a godsend when Boss created their reverb stomp box, which I remember was still really expensive at US$300, but worth it.
I think this is the only song whose drum part wasn't recorded with the "Phil Collins" patch. It's similarly big sounding, but the patch I used had a mechanical tinge to it. I think there were multiple tracks for the TD-7 because there's a quica sound in there that I don't think was recorded with the main drum part.
This is also the only song that I didn't record the bass with my solid-body Riverhead, but a hollow-body Washburn AB-40 acoustic-electric. That was a great bass with a Fishman pre-amp/EQ and a piezo pickup mounted under the bridge which picked up the full sound of the wood body which is why it sounds so woof-y. It's going through a Boss Auto-wah in the instrumental sections. I gave that bass away to Meghan during one round of "I'm not gonna be around much longer anyway".
I think the keyboard sound was created with a keyboard controller and a sound module which I bought to replace a Roland Juno-106 analog synthesizer that I foolishly sold around this time. That was an amazing keyboard and one of the last of its kind before digital synthesizers became the rage with the Yamaha DX-7. They're considered vintage now. Part of me regrets selling it, but I also remember it was an exercise in non-attachment and that part of me doesn't regret it.
The song has three instrumental sections, the first being just the background rhythm track, the second time there's an added crunchy guitar part on top – my Takamine run through distortion and no reverb – and the third time has a guitar solo played on the Peavey electric to fade out the song.
I guess the theme behind the lyrics is isolation, sort of feeling like I was at the bottom of a well and the view of the world from there. The "feels like I'm in a well...-kept dungeon cell" is a cheap literary trick, attempting to be clever.
There's an element in the lyrics that's a reference to Plato's cave and how our lives are like shadows of a reality cast by a divine light coming from outside the cave that we have no concept of. And there's a reference to an analogy between Plato's cave and movie-making. Movies are just light and shadow manipulated upon a screen, but we often ascribe a certain reality to them and let ourselves be drawn into it.
I think this song is the second reference in this collection of the back of my eyes, and the imagery was supposed to evoke looking at the back of my eyeball – my eyes being the view of the world and with eyes being the window to the soul for other people, the real me was actually one step further withdrawn, not engaging or interfacing with the world, but just contemplating what was falling on the back of my eyes.
More reference to angels with the "she with wings" line, and I guess I was getting out some feelings about a previous relationship in college, Luyen. She was from Florida, so I was obviously thinking about her for that line, but that's the extent of what I remember. We had discussed angels in a theoretical, conceptual sense, but she was no angel. And neither was I.
I was living in San Francisco at this point, going to law school in downtown S.F. everyday. I remember having existential problems being in an urban setting and all the concrete and all the people, and for a time I dealt with it by keeping my line of sight over people's heads trying to avoid acknowledging their existence. Pretty pathetic.
I'm scared of heights, or at least I used to be, and I was referencing that in opposition to the metaphor of digging my own grave. Dreamscapes, death states, I think they're fairly envisioned as being above, rather than below, and my lifescapes I was definitely feeling as below.
Actually, I think the concept for the opening line was digging my own grave and then by accident digging too deep and finding myself trapped. Story of my life. And then there are the obligatory references to death and choosing to die.
Dug this hole too deep to find sleep
Just a pinpoint shaft of light out of which I can see
Feels like I'm in a well-kept dungeon cell
Faint rose smell and the sky looks like the back of my eyes
Shadows move on rocks below me
Suspended here in the glare, in the glow of silver screens
I walk while she with wings tugs my puppet strings
Was she from Hollywood, moved to Florida?
With the camera focused far above the heads of the crowd
To avoid them now
From my height I'm deep in a dream
Don't know what they mean, or where they lead
Or where they have been
I'm scared of higher places where I can't see people's faces
No big deal to not know how I feel about my life
If there's something missed, choice to leave
Dismiss the world as it is
Dug this hole too deep under me
Drank myself to sleep, what I really need
Is time to rest in peace
I know that there can be no coincidences
Nothing happens that doesn't show through the cracks
