Scott Andrew - lo-fi acoustic pop superhero!

Last summer, when I should have been working on the album, I spent some time remixing “Pushover.” I had originally thrown this tune away as a misfit, but surprisingly I got a lot of positive feedback on it, and eventually it kind of grew on me. This new mix is much improved, so I’m posting it here.

The bare tracks were just awful. I cleaned up and remixed the vocals first, followed by the bass, which (if you ask me) drives the whole tune. Since I don’t own a Rickenbacker 4001 like Chris Squire does I settled for my cheap Fender bass through an overdrive plugin. Then I edited out every bit of extra noise I could find and slapped noise gates on everything.

When mixing I try to set everything where it’s supposed to be and not “ride the faders” at all, but this time I used some automation stuff to weave the guitars in and out a bit. There’s a lot of guitars in this mix — two acoustics and four electrics, not counting the intro guitar and the pretty arpeggios that come right after the bridge. My point is: this was a hard song to mix. :)

The end result is a more ballsy mix, IMO. I like it. :)

For the curious, this song has something to do with being worried that others mean to do you harm, when in reality no one’s really paying attention.

Lyrics — and a bonus — after the jump.

Pushover

Download MP3 (128k, free, login required)

Did you read this far? Cool, here’s an instrumental version you can sing along to:

Pushover (instrumental)

Download MP3 (128k, free, login required)

This audio work by Scott Andrew is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Turn, you’re always turning away from us
as if there’s nothing here you can trust
the hardest thing to learn
is you don’t have to be such a trusting soul
I know you don’t wanna give control
to anyone anymore

And I believe it’s good for you
to see how the world don’t slow down for you
and I believe these words are true:
no one’s gonna waste their time
waiting in line just to push you over

Strange, yeah here comes the change again
you know it’s not gonna let you win
it’s a complicated thing
and here come the kids with their brand new bag
but no one’s coming to burn your flag
and I doubt they ever will

And I believe it’s good for you
to see how the world don’t slow down for you
and I believe these words are true:
no one’s gonna waste their time
waiting in line just to push you over again

And you know a little uncertainty
won’t set you back
yeah a little change in the world
is not gonna set you back
it’s not gonna break your back again

And I believe it’s good for you
to see how the world don’t slow down for you
and I believe these words are true:
no one’s gonna waste their time
waiting in line just to push you over
waiting in line just to push you over
waiting in line just to push you over again

dit dit dit da da da da
dit dit dit da da da da
dit dit dit da da da da

yeah eee yeah eee yeah eee yeah eee yeah eee yeah eee yeah eee yeah eee yeah eee yeah eee yeah eee yeah eee yeah eee yeah eee yeah eee yeah eee yeah eee yeah eee yeah eee yeah eee yeah eee yeah eee yeah eee yeah eee yeah eee yeah eee yeah eee yeah eee yeah eee yeah eee yeah eee yeah eee