In the Key of K

New music! Streaming everywhere! Or buy it at Bandcamp! An artist like me makes NOTHING from any streaming services. If you want to support what we do buy the album at Bandcamp or check out Patreon and the merch store in the link tree.

I’m slowly getting all the merch added to the Merch Store! There will eventually be merch for every track on the album!

I’m trying to preserve the original idea without completely changing everything about this song. This piece was conceived as a joke–death metal Cookie Monster vocals about finding love. This is the third rewrite of the lyrics. It was first composed and recorded in 1997 but the vocals were so badly recorded that I rewrote some of them and rerecorded the vocal sometime in 1998 (maybe 1999, the memory is hazy). Now rewritten again in 2025 but I’m still not really happy with keeping all of it. I would remove all allusions to having someone else create change in the narrator, i.e. “kill my hate” or “kill my thoughts” and lines like that but if I removed all of that it wouldn’t be the same song anymore.

I used the original four track tape to extract the parts and then re-recorded the vocals. I kept all of the other original music. However, I can’t do the really harsh original Cookie Monster voice anymore so I tried it a bunch of different ways until I found something that sounded okay but is still harsh sounding. The noise clearing my throat in the beginning is from the original recording. I was clearing my throat because I had positively destroyed my voice to shreds trying to get the feeling right when I was recording vocals for this song and the rest of Volume 1. My throat hurt from screaming. I don’t push it like that anymore. Don’t want to ruin the golden pipes! 🙂😉

//
Love, Love, Love
Verse 1
Hold my hand. Kiss my lips.
Be my Valentine.

Kill my hate. Open my eyes
Stimulate me in my mind.

Be my love, sunshine bright 
Happiness is such delight.

Will I find you? Dream of us.
Make me smile, kill my thoughts.

Together oh, hold me close.
Fictional impossible hopes.

Verse 2
Hold my hand. Kiss my lips.
Be my Valentine.

Kill my hate. Open my eyes.
Stimulate me in my mind.

Be my love, sunshine bright.
Happiness is such delight

Go on hikes, riding bikes
All the things that we could like.

Pillow fights, late date nights
Baking cookies all the time. 

Dream of you, dream of me
One day I hope we can meet.

I will find you, dream of us
Make me smile, kill my thoughts.

Be my love. Love so great.
Make me love. Kill my hate.

Kill my hate
Kill my hate
//

For the record, it is toxic to expect someone to change you. You can change from experience, shared circumstances, and self-reflection, etc. but not exclusively from finding a romantic partner or friend. You are a shitty person if you think it’s your partner’s responsibility to make you happy or change your flaws. You should try to be comfortable and happy with yourself first. We are all works in progress and most of the work is in the grey areas of the in between.

What’s the key? Some flavor of E, mostly minor or Phrygian. As I have said many times before, I was not thinking about key signatures at this time–I knew what chords and scales were but I didn’t really understand them yet.

The music is very simple. I used very similar chords later on in Open the Door Or I Swear I Will Break it Down (this will link when I release it) but played in a different way. Subconscious re-writing maybe. 🤷‍♂️The lowered second scale tone is all over the place in my writing. Phrygian is a way of life! 😎

The intro has the bass playing an A while the guitar plays a little riff. For the record, I think that was a mistake–I think I originally meant to play a B in the bass. It is what it is now. 🤷‍♂️The guitar is really hard to ear it out–at least for me–I hear something different in my head than what is audible and can’t seem to remove that influence from my ear. If I had to play this song today I would play something like this (knowing it isn’t true to what is on the recording):
-7-8-7—————
-7——-10-7———
—————-9—-
———————
———————
——————–

There are also several little licks and slides in this song. They are mostly improvised, please do the same. The slides are on the sixth string descending from near the 12th fret.

Verses:
|E5*F5*|
|G5*Ab5*|
Breakdown between verses:
|E5***|

The solo section begins with the verse chords but eventually the bass starts climbing with a chromatic pattern. Not going to transcribe the solo. As stated many times, I wasn’t thinking in terms of scales or key signatures at this time in my playing and abandoned any intellectual idea of traditional tonality that I might have had the moment I started trying to solo. The solo is improvised and that is how it should be replicated.

This song, to me, is a bit outdated and completely ridiculous but still a fun piece of history. I smile or laugh out loud every single time I hear the line “baking cookies all the time.” 🍪