In 1998 (if I remember correctly), I went to work on the follow-up to the Vertex album. No, not Man Overboard. It was an ill-fated project called Boy-Girl Fight, the title of which is a reference to William S. Burroughs’ Advice For Young People. Item number one on his list is: “Never interfere in a boy-and-girl fight.” I think I chose the title also because I had written a few songs about a messy breakup I had just gone through.
Boy-Girl Fight never properly saw the light of day because the material I was working on leaked onto the internet long before it was finished. It was a mind-blowing situation because the internet was still in its infancy. There were already a few well-known cases of albums leaking before their release dates but it was always big-name acts. I’m nobody! I was recording at home, by myself. I wasn’t using a computer. Maybe two or three people heard what I was working on. How the FRIG did that happen? The only thing I could think of at the time was that someone must have broken into my apartment but there were so signs of any such thing having happened. To this day, the situation weirds me out. But I do have some suspicions.
I remember feeling very discouraged after the leak - like the wind had been taken out of my sails. I was angry too. It took a while before I was able to put things in gear again and get back to work.
When I started working on Man Overboard, my first thought was to NOT use any of the Boy-Girl Fight material. But after thinking about it for a while, I figured I was just being spiteful and decided to revisit a few of those songs, including one called “Pants On Fire”.
I wrote in one of my first posts here that Man Overboard marks a turning point because I started writing sad personal songs. Some would call them ‘emo’. And I expressed how I now regret ever going down that road. I won’t rehash those feelings now. But “Pants On Fire” was one of the primary offenders. It’s a breakup song. Specifically, it’s about realizing your partner wasn’t the person you thought they were and feeling misled. Maybe you’ve been there.
To get even more specific, it’s about how being straightedge often created stress and/or weirdness in my relationships. I don’t think I ever dated someone who was also straightedge. Some were further away from that than others. In this case, the person had some straight-up abuse problems.
The spark for “Pants On Fire” was lit by one particular relationship but in the end, several different people and experiences factored in. Right now, I can think of at least three or four different people I had in mind when I wrote the song and not all of the relationships were romantic. In the first line of the song, I refer to someone as ’skydiver’. I can no longer remember what that reference means, which is a bit frustrating. Who was the skydiver? It wasn’t meant literally (I don’t know anyone who ever jumped out of a plane). Does it mean ‘risk-taker’? Is it a reference to getting high? I can’t remember!
The beat for “Pants On Fire” is build around an upright bass sample that comes from a Danish jazz record. It’s not a completely obscure record. It’s been re-issued a few times - as recently as 2019. In my years of hunting, I’ve only ever seen the record twice. Despite its scarcity and the fact that it’s a great record, it sells for $20. I love it. It’s a special one in my collection and I still listen to it regularly.
My first music video (not including the Sebutones’ “To Mock A Killingbird”) was for “Pants On Fire”. I could write a whole book about that experience. Holy mackerel. The memory that stands out in my mind most is of driving an old New York City taxicab around Toronto. It was rented from a company that supplied vintage vehicles for movie shoots and such. This thing was in rough shape. No power steering and brakes barely worked. So handling the thing was hard and scary work.
My old friend Micah, who directly the video, wanted it to look like it was raining to match the mood of the song. So picture this: we’re driving around in an old car that was NOT road-worthy. There was a giant camera rig strapped to the hood, which made seeing the road in front of me almost impossible. And there was a guy hanging out of the passenger-side window (no safety harness) with an old fire extinguisher-thing, spraying water onto the windshield. And the wipers barely worked. We were a menace to society. As was inevitable, we were stopped by police (which was captured on film and used in the video) and ordered to stop. I think we had to pay some big fines too. We hadn’t been shooting for long at that point (ten minutes, tops!) but luckily, we had a decent shot or two we were able to use.
I am loath to embed the video here. I strongly dislike the video version of the song. If you really want to watch it, would it be too much to ask that you listen with the sound muted?
There’s so much more I could say about the song. Some of the most bonkers stuff I’ve ever been through went into it directly or indirectly. But I think it’s best to let the ghosts sleep.
Quick progress report on the next album: I’m now at the point where I’m arranging/structuring and detailing the beats. About half of them are done. It’s starting to get exciting because ideas are starting to sound like songs. At my current pace, the beats should be ready to go in another week or so. After that, I turn my attention to writing lyrics which is always the part that takes the longest. Before I started going in on the beats, I took some time to make decisions on which ones I’d use for this album and which ones I wouldn’t. As I may have mentioned before, one of my goals for this album is to make it a bit shorter than King Of Drums. With the runtime I have in mind, I knew I had to cut a lot. I ended up cutting ten beats. That’s going to be enough for an EP, at least. So hopefully I’ll be able to return to that material later this year because it’s strong stuff.
Oh god! I just remembered that I had a big scare a few weeks ago. One of my computers did something weird and I thought I lost a ton of work. I went into a bit of a panic for a few hours there. I don’t know what I would have done. Luckily, I was able to get everything back (which was no small feat because I’m woefully ignorant when it comes to computers). That scared me straight and I backed everything on that computer up. I should do the same for my other computer ASAP.
I guess that’s it for now. Next time, I’m thinking we’ll get granular on the “Stella” song from the Square album.
Until then.