1. Like You Really Care

The finished track :

The demo below was the first thing we put down in the Jon's studio in Jan 2014. At the time, it was my newest song. We'd already decided to put the Paradise Bound project on hold and just do a little EP of some new songs around the idea of songs that dealt with unrequited love.

I sent the piano demo out to the gents for comment and in no time Aaron sent back this version with synth orchestrations which blew me away and pushed the sentiment uphill to a higher romantic plane :

Then, Andrew took Aaron's brilliant vision and got the parts all worked out for the violins (Carla Kihlstedt) and cello (Elizabeth Schultze) and french horns (Kari Fietek).

THE STORY : I'm still not sure where this one arrived from. It's not based on someone specific or some specific place. The images exist as a sort of comic book in my mind. Maybe an apartment in Brooklyn, or perhaps a piece of something from a party in Boston that I went to with Josh. I forget. But the fleas image actually happened here at home when I was working the song over. Heather was sitting up against the cabinets sitting on the kitchen floor and picking fleas out of our cat Lou and it reminded me of a time back in college where we were walking at night and stopped where some people were gathered around on the sidewalk. There was a rather large snake, in my mind it was reddish, but that might've been the streetlights. Heather was the only one to try to pick up the snake and get it out of the street and to a safe spot on the other side of a fence in a garden nearby. That's someone you might want to follow around even if they say they don't really care if you do or not.

Have most people have been on both sides of that equation?

Lyrics

I was bored
I was really bored
Didn’t know anybody
At this party
In my own apartment
Got into this argument
With no one about nothing I can remember

Then you chimed right in Like a carnival arriving
You climbed right in Like it was your life that you’re driving
You take my wheel and you make straight for the future
You made me feel I could get used to this torture

I sit and stare while you’re picking fleas off my cat
You’re sitting there sticking to the lies that fell flat
I mistake your smile for the truth you hold there bleeding
It takes a while but I fold up into nothing

I’m falling, I’m falling for you
Am I falling for you?
You say you can’t be true
Well that’s what you say, I know
I’ll see it your way someday
But for now I don’t think you’ll be getting through to me.

You sleep around and you tell me all about it
I keep it down in the hell you built around it
You take me up to the park out past the landing
I make believe your heart is where my hand is

You say I’m free, just as free as you are
I say I’m me and I want you here forever
Your eyes fall away from mine

I’m falling, I’m falling for you
I am falling for you
You say you can’t be true
Well that’s what you say, I know
I’ll see it your way someday
But for now while you’re lying there
For now, while you just lie there
For now, I will play like you really care.
Like you really care.

music and lyrics by Humberto Cordero

orchestration by Aaron Mayo & Andrew Fietek

Hum : piano, vocals

Andrew : drums, percussion

Jon : upright & electric bass

Carla Kihlstedt : violin

Elizabeth Schultze : cello

Kari Fietek : french horn

Recorded and mixed at Brick Hill, Orleans. (except french horn at Andrew's house)

Mastered by Coast, Berkeley, CA

hum style chart of Like You Really Care.

the cat pictured is big ol' LuLu. Rarely had fleas actually. Alas, he is now pushing up daffodils in the backyard.

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