Notes on "Spoiling The Game" Track 2 from the CD "because there's nothing outside", companion piece to the book, "god in chains"

Notes on "Spoiling The Game" Track 2 from the CD because there's nothing outside, companion piece to the book, god in chains:

Whenever I’ve made an album of songs, I’ve gravitated toward some kind of consistent approach in the recording process of the songs because I was looking for a way to connect them together, even if it is in very subtle ways.  One of these ways that I stumbled upon with Because There’s Nothing Outside was the use of a tape delay effect in the recording software. I actually don’t even know what it’s technically doing , but I found myself running already recorded parts through different effects just to see what would happen. And what happens with the tape delay if you bring it up to a certain point, it starts feeding back on itself, adding more and more effect on top of what you just effected. One thing that’s fun about that is that you can’t start the track in the middle, say at 2 minutes in and have the same result- that’s because the effect would start being applied where you start- this can be frustrating if you’re trying to mix just one specific spot but you don’t have all the parts there! However, I really like the “live” aspect of this effect- that’s it’s happening as you listen.

Anyway, on Spoiling the Game, you hear a little of this on the last verse- I took a clip of David’s (Zink) guitar part – that you here clean earlier in the song- and looped it and ran it through some distortion and tape delay. I love the way it just sits there and floats…

As for the lyric, this is one of those that just came to me in about 10 minutes and while I was writing it I had really no idea where it was taking me- or only intuitively maybe.  The idea that we can get stuck in an identity (a “game”) and not realize we’re choosing it, the sheer will with which we are capable of defending them, whether or not it’s wise to let go of such a construct- it’s all there… It’s amusing (to me) that the narrator’s is admitting his game is threatened at the end, though he also is wishing for someone else’s game to be shut down/shut up… Throughout my life, I have found myself letting go of many different contructs that I have made (as those who read God in Chains will see)- it could happen again for all I know… What scares me is when someone is unwilling to be wrong.  How can that possibly leave room for growth?

spoiling the game

sally looks into the mirror/but she doesn’t see her face/just a wrinkle she despises/needs to be erased/she knows a doctor ‘round the corner/she knows he’ll do his trick again/she can’t resist his magic fingers/no and he won’t spoil her game/billy joe he has a problem/he wants to find his way back home/but the streets all look the same here/no matter where he roams/he’s been walking for so long now/that he’s senile blind and lame/could have always hailed a taxi/but he did not want to spoil his game/eve and adam ate the apple/and the rest was then arranged/there’s a price for every pleasure/a loss in every gain/but there’s no good in throwing stones now/‘cause you and i we’d choose the same/who’d want to go and start from scratch anyway?/who’d want to go and spoil the game?/jesus was a story spinner/at least that’s what the stories say/seems he’d only gotten started/when they took his tongue away/now i just can’t get away from/people spinning in his name/i wish he’d come back shut them all up keep them all from/spoiling the game/‘cause they’re trying to spoil my game

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