Human Wheel / When Sense Meets Its Maker (6:34)
Composition & Lyrics: Veijalainen
Track details:
lead vocals: Matti
drums: Janne
bass: Ville
lead guitars (left/right doubled): Oikku
clean guitar (right): Suti
crunch gt (right): Suti
keys: Ville
featuring Suti in a schizophrenic guitar solo duel with himself
Ville:
I feel that this song somehow belongs to the same category as ‘Sounds of Life’ and ‘Universe’s End’ from our earlier albums. It doesn’t really sound like them, it’s more in the way it’s constructed. I don’t say that they have a similar structure either, but perhaps they are linked by the strict way of using a simple motive to build the melodies and the symmetry found in both music and the lyrics.
I wrote the song for the most part already in 1999, and re-visited part of the lyrics after the 911 occured. I somehow saw the macabre side of the lyrics, and wanted to bring more focus to that. The starting point for the lyrics was a little writing experiment I had to make during an English class. I was told by the teacher to write something that makes sense, but that turned out to be quite difficult, when I started thinking about it. So I wrote a song about making sense instead. Note that any kind of sexual associations are entirely a product of the listener’s or reader’s (dirty) imagination, the text has nothing to do with that kind of matters.
This must have been the first song of the album to be arranged and rehearsed by the new line-up. The moog themes and little solo were the last parts written during the recording sessions, and I’m quite fond of the melody there. Janne says he came-up with the drum part behind the moog-part when lying drunk on his sofa. Suti improvisized the frenzy dual guitar solo in the middle section.
There are lots of musical influences and sources for the material of the song. I am defineatly in debt to a couple of 80’s heavy metal bands (there’s actually a very clear reference to one of their pieces), to a finnish Jazz-trio, to a couple of old friends, and to some old Prog dinosaurs to say the least.
If these sound like diverse influences, then what about the vocal-stuff sounding like Jim Morrison doing hip-hop and the rhythm track which is basically a latin dance, still forming a very cohesive progressive metal piece?
Oikku:
I went to the pharmacy yesterday to get medication for my left hand tenosynovitis. They had the pills and stuff in drawers arranged in alphabetic order and labeled with four letters: BURA, CODE, DEXA, etc. The doctor had ordered something starting with VO so the pharmacist girl reached out to the drawer labeled VIAG 🙂
I wonder why I’m telling this story on this page…