Although I am talking about someone else and about issues that I can only tackle as an outsider given my gender, it is about an “inwardly” look at someone who is struggling with her emotions and the actions she feels she has to take.

With “(She’s Taking) Control” I recorded the tracks really quickly after I wrote the lyrics.  I could not stop thinking about this one.  I was full of what I had witnessed in one single conversation (in which I didn’t really participate), that it all came out as one idea that very quickly came together.  Again, the song probably no longer reflects what I had heard, but I felt this level of feminine inner-violence and I had to capture it.

Because of this encounter in NY, I felt compelled to write about a woman and her struggles with guys that take her for granted.  “(She’s Taking) Control” is not about guns, really.  It is more about the danger of letting emotions dictate our behaviors without taking a moment to cool off.  In this world of “everything in real time”, I see a lot of “act first, think later”…  In verse 2, where she loads the gun but starts shaking, I wanted to leave open what she would or would not do.

The lyrics came first for “(She’s Taking) Control”. I was hangin out in NY, and these 3 women started to talk their boyfriends and how they were not happy in their relationships. Their level of anger grew and grew… It was almost scary! I thought they would be capable of something really drastic… I decided to write a song about it, but it became more like this movie with Jodie Foster where she wants revenge and buys a gun and goes crazy. The music I thought had to be fast to convey that the female character is not taking the time to think carefully about her actions, and it is all about impulse… I could see this turned into a metal tune.

It is definitely about solitude, and how one struggles with thoughts that cannot be reconciled.  How can we feel so weak and dependent when the person we focus on clearly does not have our best interest in mind????

Because of the topic and the story I described in previous posts, I felt “Without a Word” needed to be all over the place, to reflect the rollercoaster of emotions covered in the tune.  The woman is gone, there has been foul play, but there is this addiction that feels so good, and we crave for some attention…  So, we have slow and fast, quiet and loud, light and heavy, rock and dance.  Weakness, but the strength to scream about it!

“Without a Word” is about the good old “my woman left me”.  Nothing fancy here.  But the lyrics give the impression that it might have all been planned from day 1.  So, the question is whether the character in the song has been used all along.  I guess this could also be called “Illusions – Part 2”.  I think the words before the last chorus are important.   “Bitter-sweet affliction, comforting addiction”.  After we have been used and we are no longer needed, somehow we still are into the person that did that…

The musical influences for “Without a Word” were pretty diverse, I think.  I was listening to old British post-punk and cold wave (as the Brits used to call it) bands.  Often, they use this high synth in the background.  You can hear something like that  in the verse.  But then, I was also cranking some Rammstein and Rob Zombie, for fun.  I guess that may have led to these heavy guitars in the chorus.

The faster we live, the less we have time to meaningfully connect with others.  It is like visiting a city and just doing a tour on a bus.  It is stupid.  And all you have left is your thoughts and memories, all completely disconnected from anything human.  This is exactly what Inwardly is about.

This topic is an obvious one for me.  The way things are going right now in this world make me think that I barely have time to catch my breath.  So, I picked a very clear title for the song and went with it.  Once you have the word “faster” at the end of a line, there aren’t dozens and dozens of words that rhyme with it…  “Disaster” came pretty quickly.  “Master” came next.  Also obvious was the notion that the song had to have a tempo that matched the subject matter.  The fastest song of the album.  I think it could be played even faster.