Yes, Mr. Whitaker
I found a recording earlier tonight that I had completely forgotten even existed. It is a song with a checkered past. I wrote it in high school and apparently recorded it in my ‘home studio’ (I had a $9 microphone I borrowed from a friend and a copy of ProTools Free) when I was studying in Sydney.
Yes, Mr. Whitaker
I hear what you’re saying
Lincoln is a torment
and a tyrant
but I thought you knew what I meant
When I said,
“A person’s worth is not their weight in gold.”
Don’t you ever ever look beyond anything you’re told?And if I’m such a redneck, what does that make you?
And if I’m such a redneck, what do you suggest that I do?
And if I’m such a hassle, why not just give me up?
If you don’t care about me
you shouldn’t give a fuckAnd those eyes
they used to frighten me
But now I’m lost in a daze
And I’m taken away
And I can’t stand your expectations
I won’t handle another rejection
So I’m leaving, yeah I’m leaving
goodbye and good luck
You don’t care about me
you shouldn’t give a fuck.
Yes, Mr. Whitaker by johnlacey
Two thoughts occur to me listening to this some years later.
Firstly, the song sounds exactly how I imagined it should when I scribbled down the lyrics. I mean, of course I imagined it with some sort of piano underneath it. But the rhythm and melody is just as I hallucinated it as I wrote. [Music had always been something I struggled with. And for a long time I was obstensibly a 'poet' because I couldn't make sense of music at all. I didn't know how to translate what I was hearing into something I - or someone else - could perform.]
Secondly, my voice sounds pretty good. Infact my voice seems to sound better here on a $9 microphone than it does more recently with more sophisticated equipment now. I really think I want a new microphone. Ideally I would like a nice condenser microphone, but I am tied to this computer and it has a rather noisy computer fan. Maybe it was using ProTools (back when ProTools Free existed and ran on Windows 95), perhaps that had better effects than the Cubase I’m using now. Maybe my voice is growing older and not necessarily better. It is something to experiment with though.
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