Really happy with the way this tune worked out. Scott and I had worked on recording drums on several new and older projects yesterday afternoon. So we tried a “jam” in real time, him on drums and African slit-drum simultaneously and me on guitar. Continuing on a theme of working with hazard he was able hear my part on the one set of headphones, while I could only hear his part. This is how we work. Afterwards I added additional guitars and muted bass (I wrapped an ace bandage underneath the strings at the first fret to try and get a thunky sound). I had a faulty connection going into the Presonus interface which led to a gradual degradation on the bass track by the end, which I solved with a quick fade. Hazard!
The lyrics and singing was harder. I had an idea but just couldn’t get there. It was a bit of a struggle. So I began with a sort of stream of consciousness style of writing, building it up line by line and when I recorded it, upon a few listens it struck me this song is about me, the internet, social media and the way the world has changed particularly over the past three or four years. The way people come and go… Indeed I realized that this song had everything, as Mr. G used to say, even “how to make an omelet!” It spans my entire creative life from the time I was 19 on, incorporates my influences and my first band in 1982 “Entropics” and a line from my other band “Pulsating Love Flower” (Come and Go). Finally, the title is from a poem I wrote in 1982 called “Life in Circles” which is in one of my earliest journals! So it’s a bit self-referential (I always love when a band does that) and also it has a good beat, you can dance to it and it’s a very full circle feeling having done it. Life really is a circle.
Life in Circles
And when I fracture
I subdivide, I subdivide
The calculation
The things inside
The things we hide
And all the feelings
The thoughts submerged
I call for action
To cull the herd
And what is living
In these strange times?
It’s such a struggle
All the time
I’m watching you
You’re watching mine
Life in circles
We come and go
When I fracture
Subdivide
The calculation
The things inside
And all these feelings
The thoughts submerged
A call for action
To cull the herd
What is living?
What is dying?
In these strange times
Such a struggle all the time
Life in circles
Life in circles
The Work of Now 