Shelf-Life

Song Notes

• Smile - Wil: Another very early song, probably second or third, and written entirely by me the summer before my sophomore semester on the hood of my Ford Taurus at the Panama City Garden Club (the oldest building in Bay County) while my friends were running around playing tag or something. I always liked this one, especially John's solo. I remember it was Mike's idea to put the little "bounce" breaks in there. He rarely said much when it came to arranging the songs, but when he did it usually made the song. Case in point.
• For You - Wil: This was the first song we ever wrote on the second time we got together to play. John had already dismissed second guitarist D Bryant (Something, Citizen D), which was a bit of a scandal at the time. This song immediately threw our initial idea of being a punk band out the window and set the basic formula of John pre-writing music and me coming in with a notebook full of lyrics. We'd usually "jam" on a riff until it came together, which generally took about half an hour (which is probably obvious). Any longer than that and the song got scrapped. I remember writing the lyrics in one of the computer labs under the DLU library in an attempt to write more like Polvo, but I don't think they were ever this "sentimental" or "la-la" or whatever. I always liked John's backing vocals at the end. I'd forgotten about that double ending. That was mine and Gray's idea of something funny at the time.  I remember someone (maybe C Carter) saying that this was our "signature song." Ok.
• Hearts and Heads: Wil: An early song and I think the first "Gepetto" rip. I remember writing these lyrics in my room in High Rise on my Mac II Classic. I think I had the melody of the Pixies' "I Bleed" in my head. I listened to "Doolittle" almost non-stop back then. At least two bands covered this song, Whatever Her Name Is and...er, I forget the other one, but it was one of those Tucker/Charles kiddie bands when they were maybe 15 or so. John sang lead on one of those occasions and rocked it out. I believe there's video of that somewhere. Also, when I listen to this song I realize how great of a drummer Mike was.
• Speak - Wil: I wrote a lot of songs back then about hands, hearts, heads and eyes being broken, etc. Bleh. Idiot. I think this is the other "Gepetto" rip.
• Live For Now - Wil: Probably the most blatant of the "Gepetto" rips, I about flipped when I finally heard the Belly song and wanted to kill John. But I think with the other parts in there we pull it off as our own. A rare positive lyric from me and I'm not sure where all those "Oooos" were coming from.
• Crazy - Wil: Shelf-Life was in many ways a blend of J Goodfred's Metallica/metal influences and my more post punk/pop posturing (yes kids, that's intended alliteration). To me, this song was one of the more obvious examples of that. John had written the music long before we met and the same is true for my lyrics...which are just your generic, dumb love song type. And yeah, I think that's a bass solo from me. Yikes.
• Things I Like - Wil: One of the few "serious" songs I've ever written about a specific event in my life that bothered me. Vincent was this guy in PC I worked at the car wash with and long story short, he lost custody of his son in a divorce case and when I came home for Christmas 93 learned that he'd committed suicide, which was something very new for me, especially at 20. I wrote the lyrics and music in one angry session in my room at home.
• Heyday - Wil: We owe a lot of this album to Belly's album "Star," 'cos John must have ripped off the song "Gepetto" about four times. I'd never heard them so I had no idea what he was up to. This is a later example of that, written after we'd already played out once or twice and was recorded after our initial demo sessions with G Carter to fill out the album Thump AV agreed to release (bless them). I got busted by either J Mower or J Lashlee for ripping off the Lemonheads' "Paint" with my lyrics (and ironically the melody as well) which I think I admitted at the time. If not, I do now.  We rarely played this one live 'cos Mike was forever ending the song post solo and forgetting the last chorus.
• Selfishly - Wil: Written entirely by John, I'm not going to say who it's about. This song made me realize how much I enjoyed just playing bass and not being burdened with singing as well. John gets points for use of the word dagger, which again shows where his roots were. I think we only played this one time at Guido's.
• Murder - Wil: One of the few songs written outside of our formula, I'd come up with the music as well as the lyrics, though John really brought out the chorus with that little metal run, which isn't as obvious in this recording. He also used a 12-string for the acoustic and I think it was slightly out of tune...just like my vocals. I think I was trying to be The Church here and always quietly dedicated this song to my friend Rachael from FL for no reason in particular. We played this song at a Phi Mu Alpha music fraternity recital, much to the dismay of all the stiff collared faculty, etc. I got kicked out shortly after.
• The Weight - Wil: In a lot of ways this is a throw away song, but it was fun to play live. I can't believe the guy who reviewed us in the Scene really thought we took ourselves so seriously after hearing a song like this. Anyway, all the noises, etc at the beginning and end are 100% me and Gray messing around during the final mix. John and Mike couldn't make it and weren't really thrilled with the outcome of this one. Check out that blistering J Goodfred solo! This song also had a sister song called "A Hunk of Burning Love," which I know is an Elvis song, and though I'd never heard it, I knew it was out there at the time. It never got recorded or even played live.