Larger Than Life: Left Eye Open

Larger Than Life

Oh! Seems there’s something missing

Oh! Right from the beginning

Prize my left eye open and heaven takes a look inside

I don’t know what you were thinking

Find your soul wide open and punch a hole right in the sky

I don’t know what to believe in

”There’s  something missing from the beginning” ~ Living as a neuro-divergent person understandably makes you aware of the various differences between yourself and most other people.  There wouldn’t be many who’d have to negotiate the constant perceptions of ubiquity that I do for example.  And it would be impossible for those perceptions not to impact your moods, modes of thought, speech and behaviour at times as well.  Neuro-divergent thoughts, neuro-divergent actions.  And in fairness, I suppose it is natural that at times people will, in a workplace or elsewhere, attempt to explain or understand a person and indeed their quirks as well.  To this day I suspect my reality of schizoaffective disorder might surprise a few!

In fairness people couldn’t possibly understand - but I’d get frustrated vent, rant, vex. And in doing so, raising more questions in the minds of others.  Prompting further value judgements. Fanning the flames of frustrations again. And so on and so forth in a never-ending vicious cycle.  It does kind of suck.

But music for someone like me, is more than simply an artform, hobby or activity to occupy my spare time.  It is a necessary channel through which I can express myself in a creative way, and in a voice that would not be possible via any other medium.  Creating music allows me to give expression to ideas which would be otherwise unchanneled and without direction or meaning.  Admittedly, art being art, the perceivable meanings and contexts of my art and music aren’t always clearly discernible; and therein lies the great function of all forms of artistry – to be specific enough to create and capture context, but ambiguous enough for an audience to create their own meanings..  Good poetry, good lyrics will perform this function every time.

I gave Larger Than Life its name of the basis of the chorus melody – huge, ambitious and very colourful! Lauren’s incredible vocals capture the sentiment adeptly! The backing vocal harmonies provided by Dunc thicken the aural texture of the song and really add to its richness of sound and layers.  Cam instructed Toby on the drum parts for this one in the studio.  It’s quite a disjointed rhythm – one which wouldn’t be in keeping with Toby’s usual playing which centres around grooves and feel.  But, as with much of Cam’s input during the recording process, it works a dream for this recording!  A short 2.5 minute recording, but one so packed with layers and sonic information that, as someone once commented, “I had to listen to it three times to get a sense of everything that’s happening!” A very compact but colourful sonic experience.