One Cut Too Deep (2005)

A few years back the older girls had a couple friends who practiced a form of self-harm called cutting. I had the chance to talk to these girls and was, of course, equal parts amazed and horrified at the concept. It was some time later that the idea for this song came about.

I was sitting in Church one night and had a pad of paper with me. As I listened to the class I started writing lyrics. The phrase One Cut Too Deep came out and almost immediately I began to see a very clear mental image of a room. In the room was a fictional girl who was actively cutting. The detail of the mental image was astounding to me. All of the imagery in this song comes from the mental image I had that night. I wrote down everything I saw as fast as I could. The original piece of paper is still in my file somewhere. Quite a mess! There are quite a few images I wrote down that night that didn't make it into the song. One was a poster of Kurt Cobain on one of the walls.

As I "looked" around the room I realized something was going wrong. This fictional character did not have the intention of killing herself (those who practice "cutting" rarely do), but something went horribly wrong. The image made me terribly sad. I kept writing.

Upon finishing the song, I made a recording of it. As I could not play the finger-picked guitar part and sing it at the same time, I overdubbed the vocals. I was pretty happy with the result, but never was able to play the song live in front of people. Eventually, I had the opportunity to play the recorded song for a couple of the girls that had, by then, stopped cutting. One particular girl, scars still visible on her forearms, sat at my computer and began to sob openly as the song played. When the song was done, I asked her if I had gotten it right. She answered "yes" and then hugged me. The song seemed pretty unimportant all of a sudden.

So now, two years later, here is a somewhat different version of this song. It's recorded on my little digital recorder in one take. The original finger-picked part is heard as an introduction in this version. This take is not so much about playing a "finished song" as it is about exploring melodic possibilities in the lyrics/singing. That's why you'll not hear me singing the verses the same way most times. I had previously sung them all exactly the same when I originally wrote it. Seemed to me now that the song needed some melodic improvement. Perhaps I'll play this one out sometime soon and eventually settle on a melody that suits the song. I've been waiting two years to experience an audience's reaction to this one.

Maybe soon.
J

One Cut Too Deep.WMA [2007 scratch recording]

One Cut Too Deep (2005)
words and music by John Natiw

VERSE
Fist closed tightly
She braces for the pain
The edge of frustration
Opens virgin skin

Cold steel warms quickly
As blue turns to red
Blade falls gently
Light flickers overhead

She only wanted to hurt
Didn't mean to go this far
Just to feel something worse
Or leave another scar

Moments of emptiness
Grave consequence to keep
Precious soul flies away
Body goes to sleep

CHORUS
Can't undo what's been done
And now she's gone...
One cut too deep

VERSE
Voices of children
Crawl underneath the door
Blood falls like teardrops
Through cracks in the floor

Nothing left to feed on
Her demons finally die
Angel at the window
Hangs her head to cry

CHORUS
Dreams fall to the ground
And now she's gone...
One cut too deep

VERSE
Suddenly peaceful
She doesn't feel a thing
No disappointments
Or things that might have been

No explanations
Or farewell notes to find
Reasons are lost now
Forever in her mind

CHORUS
Soon comes the dawn
And now she's gone...
One cut too deep

Can't undo what's been done
And now she's gone...

Pro Tools for the Complete Idiot

I'm not really a complete idiot, only a partial one. I've been experimenting more and more with my ProTools set up with a recently purchased book called ProTools for Musicians and Songwriters by Gina Fant-Saez. It's colorful and has lots of pictures, so I felt less intimidated by a program that can seem very intimidating. It's very well written and only once so far in the book (and I'm about halfway through) did something not match up on my screen with what she wrote and illustrated. Everything else has been spot on.

I wish I had purchased this book earlier and straight from Amazon, but I made an impulse buy at my local Barnes and Noble. Be wise and use Amazon...at least for purchasing specialty books that are expensive.

Enough of my mistakes in purchasing, buying this book was definitely NOT a mistake. This book is sort of like taking a class. It works step-by-step through the process of using ProTools LE 7 and M-Powered 7, giving equal airtime to Mac and Windows controls and nuances. Even though the author is obviously MAC biased, she never bashes the Windows version and does a great job of simply explaining the program.

One of the activities in the book was to make your own drum loop from scratch using samples. You can even download those samples to try on your own computer! Here's her website: www.protoolsformusicians.com


The advantage of using drum loops to record with rather than a click track is that you are working with an actual groove. It brings out different ideas and makes you play differently than if you just strummed along to a click track. As far as songwriting goes, it's a great way to take your song in a different direction.

By the way, I can't hype this website enough:

Looperman.com

Free drum and percussion loops (and tons of other things). It tends to lean more toward the techno crowd, but I've found it extremely useful in creating music on the fly without having to worry about creating a drum track.