Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Libya, and on, and on, and on. Friends, the world is changing before our eyes, before our tweets, before our Facebook statuses! This week’s song is a humble dedication. A minuscule, detached and nearly insignificant voice in the real movement that is going on all around us: people are dying, and people are truly living. Our hats are tipped through song.

Song

 #jan25 [3:05m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Discussion

STEVE: Where to start, where to start… so I’ve been even more of a news junkie for the past month or so, as I am sure many of you have been. I’ve been astounded to watch as the world changes so rapidly. Earlier this week I had a cheesey Facebook status that said “I hear the world changing!” I liked it, and Wednesday night it inspired this song.

CHRIS: That’s interesting because, and this is kind of trite, but I tweeted something a few weeks ago that forms the basis of a song I’m working on. But um, my song’s just about a girl. So…

STEVE: So… this signifies a shift in universal songwriting to tweet-based origins, much like revolutions?

CHRIS: Yeah maybe. Or we’re just grasping at inspiration anywhere we can find it.

STEVE: Certainly the former, not so much the latter.

CHRIS: I do really like this song. I heard it for the first time Wednesday night and the chorus was stuck in my head all day Thursday. Just listening to the final mix now (Thursday 11:00 p.m.) for the first time and I’m going to say I think it sounds really good considering how quickly it came together. I recorded my vocals a few hours ago but had to do them blind (Steve’s final vocals and guitar weren’t done) so now that I hear them with the whole song I might have done them differently. And it sounds like maybe the mix is pumping or clipping or something, but that’s what comes with a song a week.

STEVE: I agree. To put this in perspective, I wrote the song in about a half an hour late Wednesday night and sent Chris a rough recording. He (as he said, blindly) put in the great vocals you hear now and sent it back, and I polished up my act a little over an hour ago. A song 26 hours in the making. I agree, Chris is better at mixing than I am and there are some things that could be polished more.

CHRIS: Guitar and bass sound good though. And as I said to you before, I like that this has a folk vibe to change things up a bit. It’s a more raw, simple song after last week’s programmed-drums electric guitar pop thingy. That said, I’m wondering more and more about project cohesion. I think it’s critical that we have variety like this, but I also don’t know how or if all these songs work side-by-side in an album or at a live show.

STEVE: And that is what a b-sides and rarities album is all about… hehe. A very quick word to the subject matter before this post gets far too long, and trying not to sound too melodramatic: we are watching history unfold, and watching true heroes stand up for what they think is right. There is a lot of inspiration in that.

CHRIS: The people of Egypt blew me away with their courage. Now it’s so hard to watch what’s happening in Libya and elsewhere. I don’t know what else to say.

STEVE: I agree one last time for today.

CHRIS: You’re so agreeable.

STEVE: Yes?

Lyrics

I heard the world change today
I heard a million voices
The shadows dimmed and they got shorter
And I felt the wind change directions

Hey Hey! Na Na!

I’m ashamed of my problems
I’m embarrassed to complain
When I have food, when I have water
When you are fighting for your sons and daughters

Hey Hey! Na Na!

I saw today what courage looks like
I saw what happens when voices unite
And where I woke up this morning
Is not the same place that I closed my eyes to last night

Hey Hey! Na Na!

Sing for freedom, sing for peace
I’ll sing with you, you sing with me
Brothers sisters share a voice
And change the world with all the noise

Credits

Chris Tindal: Vocals
Steve Salt: Vocals, guitar, bass
Words and Music: Steve Salt
Illustration: Claire Salloum
Produced by Steve Salt and Chris Tindal