Another song entitled “Color” has been posted on the music page. It’s a song from my band from high school (circa 1996). It was a collaborative effort of three of us in the band, however to be fair, the bulk of the song was from our vocalist Raffy Manalo (who wrote the words and basic melody).

It’s very upbeat, which is a welcome break from the previous two, slow songs.

Lyrics

Before posting the lyrics, I must remind everyone to not look for any meaning in the song… (unless you can actually derive meaning from songs like STP’s Plush)

While each line in itself can be catchy, they’re sorta disjointed from each other… and from whatever the hell “message” (if any at all) the song intended.

I tried making sense of the lines as a whole though – and the closest I can get is a sort of consolation/companionship song that is [sorta] geared for elderly or terminally ill lovers. Either way, it gives me a feeling that “life” is about to be extinguished… while the “love” endures – of course your mileage may vary. In any case I didn’t write the lyrics so I just sang it.

Color

Raffy Manalo, Carlo Santos, Henry Tan words by Raffy Manalo

I To bleed away the time it takes for us from drifting away from our sights. I catch your eye and keep it safe – for what we’ll get is what we’ll take from our lives.

REFRAIN Cover me with your warm sweet embrace. Color me when my memory starts to fade.

II Two rivers running through the woods; I’ll see it soon through your eyes. Off with our clothes – we dive into… The murky waters keep us cool together.

refrain

BRIDGE Breathe me life with your mind. Take me home. Slippin’ inside, I hide.

refrain

Production

It’s worth mentioning that the drums engine of choice for this was BFD once again. Nothing new and spectacular about it, used a DW (or was it a Pearl) kit and added some extra cymbals for variety. I did get to use BFD’s cymbal choke for the first time though. It’s at the “off with our clothes” line, and I must say that FXPansion did a marvelous job at getting those articulations. Reason was used for the bass – and there’s nothing new there. “Prove Something” was pretty much my only Bass driven song – which merited the details of the setup. With this, it’s just like any other song.

That “synth” part in the intro (and chorus) is actually a live guitar going through a custom patch in the GT-8. I was supposed to use a synth from Reason too, but I couldn’t achieve the portamento (is that what it’s called?) feel off the bat with the patches. So instead of plotting wheel bend events on a synth patch, I made a synth-like sound with the GT-8 and just picked once and slid the notes all the way – praying to God it sustains the note at each slide.