Misfits and Slow Learners Track 6: More to Life Than Sex

Misfits and Slow Learners Track 6:
More to Life Than Sex
by Cub Lea as Hot Spot
Last updated 12/04


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Vitals

Credits:

Words, music, arrangement & production by Cub Lea, 11/87

Players:

Cub Lea (all instruments)

Drums:

Roland TR-505 digital rhythm composer

Notes:

Recorded and mixed on a Tascam PortaStudio 0.5 4-track cassette recorder 12/87 in a Toronto, Canada rooming house

Postmortem

Concept

It was 1987. Aerosmith had just come out of detox, Bob Clearmountain was tearing up the charts as part of a one-two "Maple Leaf Sound" production punch with Daniel Lanois. Bob Rock was raking in zillions writing songs with everyone from Bryan Adams to Jon Bon Jovi. (I still have trouble with that; I grew up in the days when his brother, Tony Bongiovi, was working at The Record Plant in New York and co-producing or mastering some of the best rock and roll records of the early 1970s.)

And of course, I wanted some of that money!

Seriously, I loved Aerosmith's Permanent Vacation to death, but I knew if I had a chance I could do every bit as well. And this, I felt, was the proof: a tongue-in-cheek four-minute rock anthem with gimmicky changes and an ass-kicking feel from start to finish.

And it really was a very good song. While there are a few bits and pieces that borrow from Max Webster, it was mostly Aerosmith-inspired.

Execution

But it needed a lot more production than I could throw at it to really pull it off.

This is not a bad track for playing in clubs, where you can work the audience on some of the trickier bits, or for production in a state-of-the-art studio where tiny holes in the arrangement can be adequately filled in with the appropriate technical gimmickry. But it didn't come out more than three-quarters as polished and well-defined as I'd have liked on my little cassette multitrack.

The applause at the end came from running a single Roland clap sample through a chorus for slight pitch-shifting, a digital delay, and doing bounce-after-bounce until it sounded like a wall of applause. Still sounds like shit, but hey, I wanted that gimmick!

Lyrics

More to Life Than Sex

Head turn, double take, lady in the corner
Eyes roll, heart quake, blood's a-gettin warmer
Stud walk, small talk, heavy duty flirtin'
Let's play; no way; ego's a-hurtin'

Spoken:
You wanna blow this joint?
Aw, my Corvette's in the shop!
You've got amazing thighs...I mean eyes!
What do you mean you gotta work in the morning?

Oh, oh, oh, oh, here it comes
The lines are working
I never saw that ring
But it really doesn't matter 'cause the wife would kill me

I know you don't believe I'm gonna love you forever
An hour into heaven and I'm already bored
Well an hour or two of exercise is better than nothing
They tell me that there's got to be more to life than

Sex with a stranger at the Mexican border
Singles bars and luxury cars
Takin' tetracycline on the doctor's orders
Football pads and electric guitars
Candy pants; K-Y jelly
Vitamin E and nights at Chippendale's
German wine; triple-X ratings
Bump and grind, (spoken) and Donahue and Oprah?

Spoken:
Male, 35
Seeks intelligent counterpart
For friendship and fun
Photo, phone and note to Box 415

Here she comes
Getting closer
I can't look over
Cause every girl loves what don't come easy

Tell 'em you're a virgin and you'll see who your friends are
Tell 'em that you're celibate and see who's impressed
Hold out for love and people think you're a loser
They don't believe there's anything more to life than sex

Spoken:
Oh my God!
Not a single reply
What a waste of fifty bucks
But it really doesn't matter there's a whole wide world of

Media to cater to your every persuasion
Man's the only animal that's always in heat
Well they tell me it's a symptom of our civilization
Still believe there's got to be more to man than meat.

Spoken:
Hey, where did everybody go?

Announcer:
Ladies and gentlemen, presenting the most important people of our generation:
Johnny "Wadd" Holmes!
Carol Doda!
Dr. David Reuben!
Paul Newman!
And his lovely wife, Ruth Westheimer!

Copyright ©1988 Living Skill Music