This song’s interesting. Larry said it was basically about him and any number of his friends and friends’ kids. It reminds me of the characters from the moive “Go” (Katie Holmes’s breakout flick – GOD she was pretty in that movie). Of all the songs, this one talks about something about Larry which I really respect a lot. He has plenty of history of adolescent craziness, from drugs to gangs, the whole bit. But he’s turned out amazing and solid, and because of all that history and how he’s turned out, he’s able to stay calm in the face of almost anything. This song “the girl’s alright” is really what he would say if someone were to be worried about their teenager. And he would mean it and he would be right. He really has that energy of “things are going to be ok”. And that is not only rare but really helpful as all get out.
This song’s interesting to me musically too. I like how it gets more complex each go around. But I don’t like that it feels way too long. It’s like it was too long, but we didn’t change enough of the root foundation to keep it interesting to me. But when I thought about cutting it, there was no bit of the story in the lyrics that could be cut out without ruining it. So the story is the right length, the music is too long. In my opinion. Nevertheless there’s some really fun stuff in here.
First of all, right away when Larry starts singing, there’s this “brawr braw ra rar ra” thing – that’s actually me singing through a Leslie amp. A Leslie is this thing with a rotating speaker, which makes it have this crazy wavering quality. We also ran Larry’s clean guitar through that in the chorus. I think we also ran the bass through it. There’s a synth track in there that I played. Then in the second verse, there’s ANOTHER synth in there that I played and faded it in. Then we play with the vocals making them like a telephone. Then the third verse we add in an extra distorted guitar. These are all different melodies so we’re creating so much counterpoint. We just kept writing new melodies. Then we go into this bridge and there’s a synth-horn line with yet another melody! And I sing through the Leslie again. Then another bridging/chorus piece with yet another melody and another synth groove and a different distorted guitar!! Oh and I’m hearing an extra vocal!
I’m not sure why we did so much. It’s almost like this was our last chance to record anything and we threw every trick we could think of at it. I really enjoy listening to all the different timbres and ideas. There’s a lot to discover, and listening to it now, I hardly remember doing any of this. It’s also a decent mix which always amazes me.
So yeah, that’s “The Girl’s Alright”, and yeah man, she really is.