Misfits and Slow Learners Unreleased Track 5: Phoenix by Cub Lea as Hot Spot Last updated 05/06

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	Credits:	Music, arrangement & production by Cub Lea, 02/85-12/87
	Players:	Cub Lea (all instruments)
	Guitars:	Westone "fat Strat" w' Bill Lawrence L500 bridge pickup; Tokai Talbo bass. Phasing: MXR Phase 90 w'trimpot dial; filter: Ibanez AF-9 Auto Filter
	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

Concept

This bastard was a bitch. It began as one of the very first hard rock songs I ever wrote, the abominable In Your Eyes, and I loved the chorus hook on that song so much that I simply couldn't let go of it.

I tried twice to revive this idea and turn it into a fully-fledged song, failing on both occasions. This is as close as I came, and the fact that this is only an instrumental illustrates just how frustrating this was; I simply couldn't make the lyrics work with my voice.

The concept is simple enough. It's just a rumbling, grinding arena-rock track with not a whole lot to recommend it on first listen. But the pregnant pause at the end of the chorus is so damn catchy (if you like that sort of music, that is) that it's hard not to like this song at least a little bit.

I found as I wrote it that I simply couldn't stand four and a half minutes of the same damn rhythm, not without a blistering solo well beyond my technical abilities, so I threw the oddball break into it to add interest. The bass riff on the break came from another song idea dating from the early 80s that I was never able to develop into a song, and it's difficult for me to decide whether or not it works.

Execution

The sound on this is quite reasonable, thanks in no small part to a nice little Ampeg tube amp I had available for a short period that sounded wonderful at "rooming-house volume" when the input was overdriven by a stomp box. The guitar flips back and forth from the notorious "Eddie wind" (the MXR Phase 90 swoosh made famous by Ted Templeman on the first Van Halen album) in the verse to a nasty filter effect in the chorus that sounds not unlike a sheet of galvanized aluminum being shaken back and forth. All in all, the phasing is nice...but that filtering simply shouldn't be there.

This ended up as an instrumental only because I simply would not record vocals on it with the lyrics I had, and couldn't find a lyric/melody combination that worked with it. I desperately wanted it for side 2 of the Misfits cassette but was never happy enough with any version of it to feel confident about adding it. I've hung onto this rough for a long time now, hoping to find a use for it as background music for a spoken-word track, but alas, it seems doomed to stillbirth.

Phoenix

Phoenix felt no heat below
Above saw cool blue sky
Determined that there was no fire
Until he turned his eye
Blazing bright above him now
Seen only through the fog
Every rifle has its range
Every bullet writes the log

And you wanna go home
Cause you're never alone
And you never could see
How complete you could be
You got nothing inside
That could ever say why
You're coming undone
And you never have fun even when you try

Refrain:
I saw it in your eyes
I saw it in your eyes
I saw it in your eyes
I saw fire burn in your eyes

The motor shudders; cable jerks
You hear them pound the door
The smell of fear is rising through
The cracks along the floor
The tower shifts and quakes the ground
The girders struggle free
Stranded here between the floors
It's the only place to be

And you're so damn lonely
Can't talk to no one
Can't even stand the light of day
And you're so damn tired
The phoenix inside you
Is stripping your reason away

Refrain

Break:
You'd never know it if another shared your hollowness
No way to say how bad you really ought to feel
But I have seen the desolation; I have known the isolation
Not just yours but it's real

Phoenix feels the heat below
And knows there's cool blue sky
Sees that bullet bearing down
Iin the corner of his eye
There ain't no freedom quite as sweet
As living close to death
Everyone needs someone who
Can share that final breath

Hey bring it on back
For a final attack
When the fire burned high
Then you knew you could fly
You can never escape
Do your fighting awake
Cause you've finally found
That you can't fly when you're six feet down

Refrain

(c)1987,1988,1990 LivingSkill Music