Making "Division Street," Part Six: Alibi

First, here's the song: Alibi

I've always admired writers like Steve Earle and Randy Newman. They are both masters at "story" songs, something I've never been good at. I tend to write what I call "concept" songs, where the meat of the song is an idea or a "feel." My lyrics are often abstract; my natural voice just doesn't lend itself easily to story lines and characters.

For Division Street, I did a few different songwriting experiments. With The Winter Line, I explored internal rhymes and unconventional structure (not playing the chorus until the very end of the song). On Division Street, it was an exercise to write an entire song in one session. For Alibi, I wanted to explore a more story-like structure. I wanted to have a character other than me singing the song. There's still some abstractions - I can't seem to shake them! - but I did end up succeeding in creating a character for the song.

The mystery in the song is that the character has done something, but we never know what it is. We just know he is seeking an alibi.

The song starts off with picked guitar and ukulele. Electric guitar joins in the first chorus, and then... my son's debut playing piano for me! Seth is 20 and taught himself to play the piano by learning tracks from the Amelie soundtrack by Yann Tiersen. Which, if you know the composer, is a pretty ambitious way to start! But he's got loads of talent. He's using my studio to make a CD of his own at the moment, in fact. So he played the piano for this track. The instrumental section highlights the piano and cello.

I played the cello in elementary school, and then again my senior year of high school orchestra (in between I played double bass), and last year I bought this cheap pink cello. It's crap for anything real, but sounds well enough for recording in my little project studio.

My favorite lines in this song:

There will be no rescue, no last minute get away
There will be no bread broken with the Devil's man today

And once again, theological references. I sure seem to use a lot for a die-hard atheist! It's just such a rich trove of myths and shared allegorical context in our culture, I can't stay away!