Misfits and Slow Learners Unreleased Track 4: They Don't Want to Know 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; Tokai Talbo 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

This is another track that sprang from the lyric first, and it really shows with the almost-extreme lyrical density here. It wouldn't have been a bad song, really, if it didn't suffer from the same problem which afflicted so many of my early compositions: I had no idea what the fuck I was writing about. It was clearly a song about difficulties in a group of friends in which one the group either rises above the others or gets left behind, and I wasn't just content to deal with one end of the conflict spectrum...I had to have both winner and straggler involved.

I've been told it's a very evocative piece, which is flattering, but I can't help but feel ashamed when I hear that kind of phrase, because I had never been part of a group of friends like this. It was pure imagination with not a drop of real soul; if there'd ever been a "Jay" in my life, it was me.

Musically, it's a pretty straight rip of Bon Jovi/Bryan Adams/Pat Benatar...perfectly typical formula radio-rock, and just one hook short of being complete enough to be worthy of airplay. I'd been working on Burning Rain at about this time, and my sense of structure was improving rapidly. By the time I was finished this track, I'd become so familiar with my own construction style, and so capable of dissecting song structure, that for perhaps the first time ever, I was able to divine the core weaknesses in a song I'd just produced, in this case the numerous instances of lyric/melody coherence (easily correctible if I'd taken the time and not been so attached to my own words), the bridge to the chorus (somewhat trickier to fix), and the lyrical break, which was a total disaster, and might require robbing another song of its major hook riff.

Execution

This wouldn't have turned out badly had I been able to keep this "magical" Yamaha solid-state amp I'd stumbled into that played like those classic Ibanez square-button Tube Screamers everyone pays big bucks for today. As it is, it uses the Boss Super Overdrive which is nowhere close to as sweet-sounding, and in all fairness, it really could have used another set of ears to help shape the tonal palette. I've got something of a knack for putting together unique "sounds", but this was a vanilla commercial rock song and demanded a fairly vanilla sound.

They Don't Want to Know

Jay can't understand; he's never felt the acid
Of eyes on his back as he makes the climb
He's never known the pain of friendship long and now gone
Now I see through an old friend's eyes
I kissed him off because I thought he'd climbed too high
Jealousy cost me the best friend that I've ever known

Stay with me
I need you to play with me
Maybe we couldn't rise out together
But we can still rise above our differences with love

Chorus:
They don't want to know
That you've got a mile to go
That a dream can give you more
More than the sleepers ever know

Jay can't understand; all he can see
Are friends who are more than he thinks he can be
It's not fair; there's no heroes down on Division Street
Aldo got money, Sheree got letters
The old gang looks hard for the time to get together
And me, I'm just a reporter on the beat

Carry me
Don't try to bury me
Maybe we couldn't rise out together
But we gonna kill the tree if the roots don't get fed

Chorus

Break:
Somewhere along the line the dream dies
Hope fades into the reality of kids and nine to five
So hard watching a friend on the rise
But you can't bridge the gap by keeping your own dreams bound and tied

I don't want to leave you thinking this is forever
It's not often that I come around
But I don't think I've gotten too big for our little band
You're holding me back when you say that I have
And you won't take the risk of peeking over that ridge
It's the worst form of prejudice to place yourself below your own friends

I need you to carry me
The heat can bury me
Sometimes I'd die for life in the slow lane
But I'm only doing what my heart says is true

Chorus

Copyright ©1988 LivingSkill Music