{"id":847,"date":"2019-07-03T03:18:02","date_gmt":"2019-07-03T02:18:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/perpetualemotionmachine.com\/?p=847"},"modified":"2024-11-14T20:40:17","modified_gmt":"2024-11-14T20:40:17","slug":"bad-day","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/perpetualemotionmachine.com\/index.php\/bad-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Bad Day"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Key 69<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Perpetual Emotion Machine<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

from The Unforetold<\/a> \/ Released as a Single<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

2009<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Bad Day<\/strong> was the second song written for the 2009 album The Unforetold<\/a><\/strong>, and probably the piece I’ve spent the most time on since The Flight Deck<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The track originated from several fronts and inspiration points. Actually, the whole concept of the track originally stemmed from a point of anti-inspiration: my job. Basically, I hated my day job, and I had for some time. So the lyrics basically narrate what was going through my head during a typical weekday when I had to go to my job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I began this song, the lyrics were written at the same time as the music, which is a first for me; usually the words come after, because I find them so hard to write. For Bad Day<\/strong>, the lyric writing was almost effortless, because it was something I had been dealing with for a long time. The style of the vocals, either by accident or subconscious intent, ended up featuring spoken vocals, a concept I admired from the Pet Shop Boys<\/strong>‘ ‘Left To My Own Devices<\/strong>‘, as well as Karl Hyde<\/strong>‘s lyrical creations for Underworld<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other concept behind this song, besides the job-hating, was that of being trapped in a place when you would much rather be somewhere else. In this case, I was feeling rather distant from my daughter, living several provinces away, and I was wondering if she felt the same thing I did. At the age of five, memories can be fleeting and I often wondered how much of me she retained. For myself, I felt that the whole experience of visiting her was kind of a dream, and that’s where the lyrics for this section came in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wanted a female voice to accompany mine for the singing bits. I was hoping that a female voice would play the part of my daughter in the song. Her and I would both be singing the same line, but in harmony. So I enlisted the help of Catherine Goodrick<\/strong>, the wife of a good friend on mine, and we recorded a couple of brief sessions. I loved the sound of it, the two parts sounded great together, and it was just what I wanted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shortly after beginning work on this, I realized that this was going to be a trilogy — a three part opener to the album, and that the whole thing was going to be in excess of twenty minutes. I had two other songs I was working on that were roughly the same key and tempo so I retooled them with this in mind. So once I was happy with all three, I went to work on the other successive parts, which ended up being Dad’s Day<\/a><\/strong> and Hard Candy<\/a><\/strong>, with the entire suite being entitled The Unforetold<\/strong>, and also the name of the album, ultimately. The three sections share elements from one to another which make them cohesive — the suite begins and ends with the same bass sound and sequence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I experimented with this song, more than any other, and lived and breathed the track for weeks, even months all told. Thus, there are many versions and many more that didn’t survive a hard drive crash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bad Day<\/strong> also has its own music video and here it is<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lock 6900<\/div>\n\n\n\n
Bad Day (Demo)<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Perpetual Emotion Machine<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The first version of the song, before the lyrics. Doesn’t seem to exist anymore.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lock 6901<\/div>\n\n\n\n
Bad Day<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Perpetual Emotion Machine<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

This is the album version, isolated from the Unforetold Suite.<\/p>\n\n\n