Misfits and Slow Learners Unreleased Track 3: Burning Rain by Cub Lea as Hot Spot Last updated 05/06

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	Credits:	Music, arrangement & production by Cub Lea, 11/87
	Players:	Cub Lea (all instruments)
	Guitars:	Westone "fat Strat" w'Bill Lawrence L500 bridge pickup; Kramer/Ovation aluminum-neck fiberglas-bowl acoustic; and nobody played bass
	Drums:	Roland TR-505 digital rhythm composer
	Notes:	Recorded and mixed on a Tascam PortaStudio 0.5 4-track cassette recorder 02/88 in a Toronto, Canada rooming house

Concept

A couple of weeks after I wrapped Misfits, I still had the TR-505 to work with and was starting to get the sense that I could pull decent songs out of my ass almost at will. And over the course of a day or so, I proved it with this track.

I'd had the lyric kicking around for at least a couple of years - I forget where it came from, what inspired it or when it was even written - and I was so taken by the depth of this particular lyric that I wanted to wrap a fully-fledged radio-rock composition around it. As you'll see below, this lyric had taken quite a while to get reasonably right...I'd been through two major edits on it and at least a half-dozen more minor edits before tracking it, and I played with the lyrics still more once the four-track demo sketch had been done.

The results speak for themselves. If this had been professionally recorded, I do believe it stands up well with the best formula hard rock that I've written. But by the time I was able to convince my father to finance some pro demos, I had a good dozen more tracks of at least equal quality to this one by the time initial funding arrived, so this never even got finished as a four-track demo...this is the only version I have.

Execution

Vocal-wise, this song isn't up to the level of performance or mix quality of the other Misfits tracks. But the rest of it turned out not too badly, and there's not a lot that I'd change from this arrangement if I was to do it again. It's a nicely-designed twin-guitar attack, and while the nasal-sounding, slightly-overdriven rhythm guitar was a departure from a lot of my previous material, it worked well, and would have worked even better alongside tracks such as One is a Thousand and They Don't Want to Know.

Lyrically, it's still not finished, even after all those edits...it clearly needs a third verse to complete the sentiment and a few key tweaks to bring the lyrical focus down to a level where it can be grasped on first listen. Ostensibly, the "target" here is self-righteous proselytizers of virtually any stripe, from life-skills coaches to preachers and fanatics, but it would have been nice to tease the listener by focusing on a single target and dropping clues as to the individual's identity. The fact is that this is a stopgap effort; I have no doubt the lyric would have come together marvellously well had the song been taken further. Simply working with the track would undoubtledly have led me to a more cohesive, evocative and rhythmically smooth lyric/melody.

The lyric as it's constructed is very nonstandard construction. I took a songwriting course a few months later where I learned an affected hatred for my wordier compositions, but I'd long since proven my ability to make songs almost stand on their lyrics alone; I wish I'd avoided that commercial trap. I wouldn't change this much at all, but as you'll hear in many places, the overlap of lines in a single breath led me into some...shall we say..."interesting" emotive dilemmas.

As you hear this, it might not occur to you for a minute or so but there's no bass guitar here. This was the first track I had ever done using three guitar tracks throughout the song, and since I wasn't taking this demo further, I never bothered laying down a bassline and forcing an unnecessary "bounce", which would necessitate a significant drop in overall fidelity on the final mix. Let's not forget...this was long before the days of cheap desktop digital recording. So this stands as my "AC/DC tip", although I'm sure AC/DC would never soil their hands with a song which bows this deeply to southern rock.

Burning Rain (recorded version)

Take a good long look
The picture isn't pretty; I never said it was
Well you can drink with your eyes
Until you stagger home stoned like a dead-end junkie
You got no fight left, always tense and tight
Always afraid of the cold, grey dawn
Stop making sense, stop defining
The world by the ground that you stand upon

Chorus:
I don't want to hear it, I don't want to see it
I don't want to know about the damage and the pain
Please don't come around if you're gonna pull me down
Can't you see your jealousy spreading like a burning rain

You can't shake my faith
No, all you can do is siphon my gas
But at the very same time
There ain't no way I can raise you up to my class
So make your little life
Take your little joys
Stake your little claim on all those little girls and boys
Shake your little ass just like a puppet on a chain
You can't feel it in your bones that you're gonna ride your dreams

Chorus

Copyright ©1988 LivingSkill Music

Burning Rain (lyric scratchpad)

Take a good long look
The picture isn't pretty; I never said it was
Well you can drink with your eyes
Until you stagger home stoned like a dead-end junkie
You got no fight left, always tense and tight
Always afraid of the cold, grey dawn
Stop making sense, stop defining
The world by the ground that you stand upon

Chorus:
I don't want to know it, I don't want to hear it
I don't want to think about the damage and the pain
You'd better come around cause they want to see you drowning
Can't you see your energy is pouring like a burning rain

Alternate Chorus:
They don't want to know it, they don't want to hear it
They don't want to know about the damage and the pain
You'd better come around cause they want to see you drowning
Never let em, never let em put you on the ground again

Alternate Chorus:
(I, you, they) don't want to know it, I don't want to hear it
I don't give a damn about the problems and the pain
Friends'll hold you down and they'll stop you leaving town
Can't you feel their jealousy around you like a burning rain
/Didn't Daddy tell you not to stand out in the burning rain

I can't shake your faith
All I can do is steal your fire
But if you ain't real
It wouldn't take much to topple your tower
So live your little life, take your little joys
Shake your little ass just like a puppet on a chain
Spend your little time with all your little girls and boys
But don't be comin at me with your terror time again

You got it all inside
Just watch your step until you know how to let it out
You can't climb too high
But you can shoot so low that you wind up underground
Push, push harder, push harder again
You gonna keep on pushin pushin til you break yourself and then
You gotta set sights higher than you think you can fly
Cause gravity will get you if you fly below the rain

--------------------------------------------

Alternate Verse Set 1:

Take a long hard look
The picture is bigger than the one in your dreams
And all you can see is the stars
Could the highway to heaven be as hard as they claim?
Well there's rust on the fenders, water in the engine
Dangerous curves in the cold, grey dawn
And back seat drivers who can only define
The world by the road that they travel on

Well it's easy to smile, harder to laugh
And hardest of all when you can't see the light
Sometimes you're saving the world in your mind
And sometimes you'd chuck it all for just one silent night
Takes a lot of tears, takes a lot of fear
Takes a lot of years to figure what it really means
But it don't take any courage if you really feel the burn
Cause gravity will get you if you're too afraid to dream

I came to the crossroads for the 29th time
The coward inside points the way back home
I picked a road and swore I'd never change my mind
And the coward leapt out like a lion full-grown
The rain on my clothes burns right through to my skin
I've never been down this road before
I'm swimming in quicksand right up to my chin
But then I live to run naked in the eye of the storm

--------------------------------------------

Alternate Verse Set 2:

Take a good long look
The picture is bigger than the one in your mind
But oh, if you were in charge
We'd all be in for a hell of a time
You say there's rust on the fenders, water in the engine
And dangerous curves in the cold grey dawn
Back seat driver, stop defining
My world by the ground that you stand upon

Chorus:
Because I don't want to know it, I don't want to hear it
I don't need you telling me the way that I should drive
I don't need a rider, don't need no navigator
Let me pick the road and I don't care if it's a long, hard ride

Well I'm a stranger in town, I know
But give me some credit for finding the road
You say you know the hot spots
Well maybe you're right but I'll go where I want to go
All your big friends in your little town
Can't dream big enough to keep lil ol' me around
And the second I let 'em start running my show
My sky-high dreams are tied to the ground

Don't look surprised; you've heard it all before
You see it's really up to me to select my own track
Long-distance friends, yeah they gotta be tight
But they gotta take care not to hold each other back
Leave it, leave it, just let it drop
You've got to let me have the right to be wrong
If your road's going that-a-way we'd better part friends
Cause you wouldn't be happy just going along

The sick smell of envy covers your breath
Take away the hatred and there's really not much left
A man who can't hear the music for the noise
It may be my folly but it's still my joy

Copyright ©1988-1990 Living Skill Music