Well-hidden Secrets: The Center Didn't Hold.

Been a while hasn't it? Miss me yet? I'd always suspected that unhappiness is what triggers my creativity, and since I hadn't been truly "happy" in years, it had been a difficult claim to verify... but now after a brief interlude, I have a refreshing gust of miserable tailwinds in my sails and I can confirm that theory.

Right, so this blog post is very different; it's a song I've been working on since November... well, putting off since November. For better or worse, it's an almost 100% personal effort; I wrote the lyrics and wrote, played, recorded and edited literally all the instruments... and just FYI, I used a very low quality amplifier (a 10W LTD amp for any guitarists reading this) and my laptop's voice recorder to make all the recordings... and I can't stress how difficult the editing was as well, especially since this was my first time.

For everyone who's not that familiar with editing or how music is recorded in general; usually each track is recorded separately (guitar, drums, bass, vocals, etc.) and then compiled and glued together on editing software. The agony of listening to the song over and over to make sure all the instruments were in sync and re-recording some of the tracks tens of times because of a small mistake here or there is one that will likely keep me up at night for days in the future with this song stuck on repeat in my head like elevator music in my own personal hell.

The point I'm trying to make here is that the quality is not perfect, but a) this was more of a proof of concept to prove to myself that I'm an actual musician -so I had to forego superior quality for the sake of doing everything myself- and b) it's the best I could produce under the very strict $0 budget I've allocated for this project... so go easy on a busy corporate musician who barely has an hour or two to work on this stuff every day.

Anyway, now that I've lowered your expectations as much as humanly possible and hopefully shamed the trolls away, the link to the song is below, and you can see the lyrics below as well. Little did I know when I wrote them 6 months ago that they would prove to be eerily prophetic.

https://soundcloud.com/mahmoud-bondok-149713244/the-endless-loop

Before I leave you, allow me to give a shout out to Mona Bassel, whose angelic voice made this whole project possible and who is the only reason why the few of you who are going to actually listen to the whole song won't attempt a very messy suicide to escape the agonizing torture that is my voice. I also can't forget Mohamed Abo Hussein and Yehia El Sherbini, who provided helpful artistic suggestions along the way and whose feedback -while brutal at times- was invaluable.

And finally, don't try to decipher the title... it might not seem to have anything to do with the song, but trust me, it does.

****************

The Endless Loop

She Woke up in the morning

Feeling sad & drained

Must have dreamt of him again last night

Like she does almost every night

Barely drags herself out of bed

Trying very hard not to think about him

Looks at her phone one more time

But she won’t be the first to break

She will not be the one...

Who will beg for his love.

If he wants her at all,

He’ll be the one to call.

Deep down she knows he cares...

He will come crawling back.

All she can do is wait...

All she can do is hope.

Busy day at his work

But all he does is think about her

Her smile lights up his day

Her laugh is the music of his life

He can’t take this anymore

Looks at his phone one more time

But he’s too proud to ask twice

He will never be the first to break

He will not be the one;

The one she will ignore...

The one that she’ll forget...

She’ll be the one to call.

Deep down he knows she cares...

She will come crawling back.

All he can do is wait...

All he can do is hope.

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