Singled Out: Dearly Beloved's "Move On"

By the end of writing "Move On," a song that started out as bitch-session on relationships in general, I found myself focusing on much broader issues. The more sociological aspects and disposable nature of modern life, if you will. Not down with something? Move on, there's always something else to do. Not happy with a friend, move on, there's always someone else to meet. Option paralysis on speed shuffle. That sort of thing. The age of information and technology is pretty convenient but it's also kind of cold and disturbing and in a way it has desensitized us all to some degree. Those were the things I was thinking about when the song came together.

The track was the first Dearly Beloved song to be released that was recorded in it's entirety at Phoebe St., our home studio. The setup occupies the third floor of my house and for an LE-based Pro Tools rig I must say that it's pretty kick-ass. We use nothing but old analog pre-amps on our drums and don't like editing performances. We don't have many rules, per se, but NO ROBOT ROCK is one of them.

The freedom of tracking bass grooves at 4 am at home, when everyone else I knew was asleep, grooves that sounded good enough to keep, was priceless. That's where the music came from, a spontaneous late night jam on the one - I remember the clock said 4:24 am when I hit the record button - at about 4:34 I came up for air and in all I had about 10 minutes of off-the-cuff riffage with an actual outro that was totally different than anything else in the jam, which I liked. The last third of that thoughtless freak-out session is the actual bass track in the song, note for note, wacky arrangement and all.