In the Key of K

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This was a song I wrote after my band broke up in 1996. It appeared on my first cassette tape in 1997. Most of the music is from the original four track recording but the words were re-recorded after I rewrote most of them in 2025. There was a lot of petty hate and violence in the original words. I never hated my bandmates and never really wished them ill, I was just coping with the loss of something dear to me and it came out that way.

The singer from the old band lives in the same town as me and we talk occasionally, though it’s been a few years. I haven’t heard from our guitar player in many years but have seen him several times since the band breakup. He probably still lives in California. There is a huge blogpost on the band here (coming in 2026, for a 30 year lookback!). As well as shitty recordings of some of our music (again, will be posted in 2026). I wouldn’t change anything. As time marches on you realize it was all good, at least it is for me. And now I have this fun song out of it!

Musically in the original, the guitar is laughably out of tune for the intro and coda. There were also some really obvious punch-ins with completely different guitar tone/pickups where I had tried to fix some mistakes. It’s one of the reasons I stopped doing punch-ins on the four track–unless you have an open track it isn’t worth messing up the whole thing–practice until you can play it all the way through! At least that was my experience–if you have other people helping it’s probably different. Anyway, it sounded so bad I remixed the original tape to remove the guitar and bass on the intro and coda and recorded those parts in Ableton. All drumming and all verse/chorus guitar and bass are original from 1997

//
NS
You ran away from problems. You ran away from me.
You couldn’t leave me fast enough as if I were a disease.
Disease I guess  have one, I like to call it change.
Rise above the agony to find a better way!

The road never ends x 8

It feels I’ve lost a part of me, the songs that were my life.
And now that I am lifeless, I can see the endless night.
Struggling to go on and on and try to hide the pain.
Hunting, hiding, waiting for the chance to rise again.

The road never ends x 8

That was the ending it’s over now,
And I can see new things grow.
A better life, a better thought,
Another new one brought to life without being fought.

The road never ends x8

You ran away from problems. You ran away from me.
You couldn’t leave me fast enough as if I were a disease.
Disease I guess  have one I like to call it change.
Rise above the agony to find a better day!

The road never ends x 8
//

How do you play it?
Intro/Coda:
All open chords
C***|G***|C***|D***|
G***|C***|D***|D***|
Verses:
Make the F5 and G5 off of the A string–it’s high up on the neck. Punk rock power chords
F5***|C5***|Bb5***|G5*D5 C5|
Choruses:
It’s one chord plus a little riff. The riff has pinch and touch harmonics intermittently. Touch harmonics are made by touching the string above the metal frets with your left hand but pinch harmonics are made by striking the string and a harmonic node with your right hand. Most players use the side of their thumb while striking with a pick–that is what I did randomly here because I didn’t know where the nodes were (or what they were) at the time. I just kept trying and hoping to hit them. It’s easier when your distortion is screaming. I also hit more than one node at these spots in this recording. Today, I don’t use a pick and even if I did I would still use my index finger to touch the node and then strike the string. It’s way more accurate, at least for my hands. You do you!

Bb5 + riff — I still need to re-learn the riff–I think it is something like this:
————————-
————————-
————————-
-8-8–ph5–0–h3–0–
-8-8——————–
-6-6——————–

I abandoned this song for years because of it’s negativity. With this re-write I find it more uplifting with just the right touch of sadness, indignation, and hope.