Bret Alexander-Paul Smith-Ron Simasek

PERFECT SMILE (listen to MP3 sample)

THE SONG: I wrote the lyrics in my car on the way to the studio the day this tune was recorded. In tone, I guess it is basically a love song. I remember an old quote from Bruce Springsteen that read, "The true challenge of adulthood is maintaining your ideals after you have lost your innocence". That's a pretty good description of this song. The second verse "tree analogy" is one of my favorite verses on the whole record. The idea for that came while I was reading a book on Native American culture (a big interest of mine). It was a native custom to choose the saplings for their dwellings from heavily forested areas. The logic being that the trees that had the hardest struggle for sunlight would be the strongest. Apply that thinking to the human heart and you got yourself a pretty good verse for a song.

THE RECORDING: This track is pretty simple. Rick 12 string and this thumping 1/8th note drum/bass groove a la a mid-period U2 song. The 12-string guitar is a big signature of the whole record. Gives it that "Byrds-esque" feel (no relation). The main signature melody is an Ebow and Moog synth playing in unison. An Ebow is a little device that emits a magnetic field that, when held close to a guitar string, makes it sing like a violin. It allows guitarists to play long, sustained lines akin to what a violinist would play with a bow. Hence, the Ebow. You can hear the same sound on STP's "Sour Girl" and U2's "With or Without You" to name a few examples. The track builds linearly. Starts small and ends big. We just kept adding layers of guitars and a Mellotron string or two. The "oohs" in the bridge are just Paul and I recorded a bunch of times singing along with the Ebow part. The key change at the last verse was Ron the Drummer's idea. A friend of ours told us that his favorite thing about this track was that you keep thinking that it is going to go to this bullshit section but it never does. There is great honor in being able to go for the jugular but choosing not to............. less is more.


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