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Army Dreamers

#Music #Karl Ward #Condo Fucks

Copyright © 2019 Karl Ward

Writing notes

I have obviously listened to a lot of 90s rock throughout my life, and as the whole record came into focus I felt the record was missing just one song where the bass really runs the show. The bass is pretty forward on a bunch of songs, but not exactly in the driving-eighth-notes Kim Deal sort of way. Love Kim Deal. Back in 2007, I did a tear-down remix of “Ruby on Rails” back when I was in Ninth Street Mission that had that driving bass-over-toms thing that you hear on this song. That remix didn’t see the light of day but I remembered the sound I got there and wanted to take another stab at that style.

The song structure was worked out on the bass fairly quickly, but then I agonized over the words. It was definitely the last song to get to the finish line, by a couple months. There was a totally different version of the lyrics, a dream where two lovers watch the whole town walk into the sea, and eventually jump in together. Around that time, not knowing about that song draft, my wife told me she had a dream where we were swimming deep underwater and we had to free ourselves from something to swim back to the surface. I really liked that version of the song, but the one that finally came together when I let that old version go was the keeper.

The title “Army Dreamers” is a reference to the Kate Bush song, as far as I can tell. I never heard that song until after I finished the record, and I don’t know what the Condo Fucks were going for with all those Kate Bush titles (“Babooshka,” “There Goes a Tenner”) on the fake Condo Fucks records.

Recording notes

This was the first song on the record to get guitarmony / guitar harmony / “storytelling guitars” as my friend Sal Borriello calls them. So excited that this came together this way. If there’s an opening in Thin Lizzy, please let me know.

Release Info