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Troubled Times

from Brooklyn Boy In Paradise by Allan Thomas

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About the song:

With all that is happening in our world right now this song still seems appropriate sad to say. Does it ever really change? I usually keep my eyes open for the light and hope in things, but sometimes you just don't know where it's all heading, and when you add the negatives against the positives it might seem dark indeed. But strangely enough and regardless of the obvious and real difficulties, I believe one must keep striving to keep hope alive because in the end what else have you?


About the recording:

The first 8 track digital recording device I wound up with was an Alesis ADAT. The thing cost around three thousand bucks and I would never have been able to afford one - at that particular time in life anyway - were it not for Hurricane Iniki. Yes with all the clean-up work I had after the hurricane on the five acre place and two houses I was care taking, and with the money received from the insurance covering some lost music equipment items, I was flush enough to invest in that ADAT. It was one of the better decisions I ever made on my haphazard and circuitous career path. Digital multi-track recording right in your home. They hated it, they loved it. It's too this, it's too that. I freakin' loved it and with this machine recorded several of the tracks on this collection. Once I started making some dough recording other artists I followed the advice of Mike Morrongel, formerly with A&M Studios and good bud of Barncard, who suggested I get a decent Neve pre amp as my front end for the vocals and whatever else. Advice followed. To be clear, I would always rather record a song live with a band in a studio. Magic happens in that scenario. But due to monetary conditions and otherwise, it is not always possible to get the five guys into a recording studio together at the same time you have the scratch to do it. So the next best thing is to record one or two instruments at the same time live and layer the rest at your bloody convenience and not at $75 to $100 an hour commercial studio time, and that's a deal! It adds up quick. Hence home recording on Kauai, where all you have to watch out for is the occasional rooster on your vocal track.

On this track I'm using a Roland R-70 Human Rhythm composer for the drum groove, and my Steinberger electric into a Digitech effects device, into the Neve 1272 module - which I still use for todays recordings. The vocal mic is an AKG 414 condenser.

lyrics

Troubled Times

words & music - Allan Thomas


Down in Africa and the Middle East
Nobody Knows the meaning of peace
Step out your door poverty and crime
Where you go there's troubled times
We're living in troubled times
Noting but troubled times

The inner city suburbs too
Just like a plague that won't let go of you
Drugs in the hood guns in school
Never reach your prime living in troubled times

We're living in troubled times
Hard to keep hope alive
Living in troubled times

Wake up at night
Thinking maybe it's a nightmare
But in the clear morning light
It's the same story

We're living in troubled times
Can't escape these troubled times

High cost of living low paying jobs
Government's a joke
But no one's laughing very hard
World gone mad waiting for a sign
Something gotta give end these troubled times

We're living in troubled times
How to keep hope alive
Living in troubled times

Righteous religions watch us bleed
Nothing's sacred but power and greed
You watch the news eyes open wide
Praying for a way out of these troubled times

We live in troubled times
Noting but troubled times
Can't escape these troubled times
Hard to keep hope alive
Living in troubled times


© 1994 Black Bamboo Music - BMI

credits

from Brooklyn Boy In Paradise, track released February 10, 1994
Allan Thomas - vocals & rhythm guitar

produced and recorded by Allan Thomas

Photo: Jim Shea

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Allan Thomas Hanalei, Hawaii

Aloha and welcome to my Bandcamp Music Store home page. Here you can listen to full-length samples of all seven Allan Thomas albums and three singles. Also to be found are credits, photos, stories and lyrics for all songs. Dig in...

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