Black on Black

from 3 Solid Blows to the Head by Adam Stemple

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about

This was a late addition to the album and one of the few songs I've written both on and for piano. But it's one of my all time favorites and I loved opening the album with it. I especially like the 1-2 punch between it and track #2, Fries and the Check.

I kept the instrumentation spare but weird. Piano, of course, but also two tracks of a wooden resonator guitar I played with an E-Bow. The solo is a strat played through a homemade ring modulator. The sounds at the beginning is me opening a Summit Pale Ale and taking a drink before laying down the piano track.

lyrics

Black on black
day to day
the picture fades away
in the time it takes to blink.
Anyway
I don't care
all I need is here
a faded photo and a drink

The hours pass me by
a thousand words you said
and never once looked me in the eye

Black on black
like me to you
we didn't have to do
all the things we did pretend
If not Q
then P instead
if love is truth then God is dead
the logic all escaped me then

And if I knew the sum
of all the things you thought
I'd damn you for the fool I had become

credits

from 3 Solid Blows to the Head, released May 18, 2021
Music and lyrics by Adam Stemple

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about

Adam Stemple Minneapolis, Minnesota

Adam has played so much guitar it'd make your ass hurt. Road dog for 20 years, in town Irish bars for another 20. Played everything from metal to folk to ethno-gothic-sludge-jazz. Winner of two Minnesota Music Awards.

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