Wippit Logo

Three Four

Dr Wippit • Nov 15, 2012

Time it just keeps ticking away from insanity is grabbing me

Pulling me flooring me one thousand gs are yanking me

I’m thankful for the lesson but now it’s messing with my head

I see these babies run the show they don’t know

I had twice the skills twenty years ago and I still grow

I stay positive with experience Damn I show resilience

But here it is later in the game and the ones that make it

Are just faking it


Taking the spotlight from my life

And what could they have to say?

I don’t know how they make you feel it

Not even good at stealing someone’s lie

And I never stopped a day

If it takes this long to make it

Could it be I’m faking it right now


It gets confusing cause I’m losing the game

They’re getting beautifully rewarded for being seriously lame

It’s a crime – I never made it to the right place at the right time

Struggling juggling bills keeping it real speaking my mind

I’m ready to close the sale but sure it’s too late

It doesn’t make me any younger all this hunger and ache

And I don’t know if I can dummy down enough for the minds

Of what you’re buying


The realest of us get left behind

And what could they have to say?

I don’t know how they make you feel it

Not even good at stealing someone’s lie

And I never stopped a day

If it takes this long to make it

Maybe I’m just faking it right now

I don’t feel this

It’s not real

 


Three Four was one of many songs that started with drummer Ben Gold saying, "I have an idea for a song!" In this case he followed that up with his best impression of a heavy guitar riff and went, "Du-dun, Du-dun, Du-dun, Du-dun Dun, Du-du-du-dun, Du-dun, Du-Dun, Du-dun, Du-dun Dun, Du-du-du-dun, Du-dun, Du-dun, Du-dun Dun, Du-du-du-dun, Du-dun, Du-dun, Du-dun Dun…." And over the course of the next few minutes I found the power chords that sounded to Ben like what he was hearing in his head. Once we had this opening riff down, the rest of the song was a collabaration as far as what the verse sounded like, what the bridge sounded like, and the general order of parts.


In coming up with the words, I honestly can't remember if I had the first verse written already or not, but I do remember writing that verse in LAX airport after a few days of absorbing several albums from the Rhyme Sayers label. My brother had been pushing these artists my way from Minneapolis for a couple of years, but of course I didn't pay attention until my friends here in Chicago were listening, and I remember thinking this was the best available hip-hop at the time (02-03). So once I had this first verse written it was clear to me this song was a golden opportunity for me to excorcise my anger at the rap nu-metal crap that had been driving my crazy for a while. In particular bands like Linkin Park and P.O.D. which were all over the radio had such lame flows that I thought it was a crime that kids were eating this stuff up. I couldn't help but think the free forms we did on the bus in the mid eighties were better than this crap. And power chords with distortion and screaming or barking does NOT make you heavy. Or does it? So I figure we'll take this really heavy song and scream really loud and hard like those guys and there you have it. I double tracked the vocals, and I'll always regret not fixing the part at the end where one vocal says, "Could it be I'm fakin' it" while the other says, "Maybe I'm just fakin' it", but what're you gonna do? Like all four of the Kenilworth Project tracks on the Anthology, these were mixed down years ago, and redoing parts wasn't an option.


I think the highlight of this recording is the guitar solo. When we recorded this song I'm pretty sure Jake was still a teenager, but his guitar always sounded great because he was focused on tone, and when it came to solos he focused on quality over quantity. This is something I unfortunately didn't pay attention to until I was in my 30s and I have to blame all the shit metal I listened to in the 80s and early 90s. So when Jake sat down to do this solo, he took his time, he put down several good takes, he listened to them several times and took the best parts of a couple of them, and had the engineer put them together into one amazing solo that to me sounds like it came right off a Ten Years After record, which is pretty impressive for someone who was born in the 80s.

Never Again - Again

By Dr Wippit • 21 Mar, 2024
So I have a new release featuring two heartfelt love ballads. The first track, "Never Again," is a song I wrote in the 90s, at the time I was shooting for a soulful R&B song with its raw emotion and smooth vocals. I'll be the first to admit that smooth vocals aren't my specialty.

All The Time

By Dr Wippit • 28 Jul, 2023
The new EP is out on all the streaming platforms. Details on the songs are below the links.

For Everyone - The Evolution of a Song

By Dr Wippit • 04 Jan, 2023
I started writing the song For Everyone about ten years ago. Like most of the songs I write, it started with a chord progression followed by a vague idea of what the melody could be. One day I was driving and listening back to an acoustic strumming the chords, and the beginning of the chorus just came to me out of the blue: When do we get to the part where we stop hurting each other? How do we get to the place where we stop breaking each other down? It had been some time since I wrote a song with a "message" and this one seemed to be writing itself. Suddenly, I felt this one needed to be done in a hurry and rushed out. I already had a couple of new songs close to the finish line, Yup and Paying for Lessons. Now I felt like I was close to getting an EP worth of material , and I wanted to get it to the masses. It didn't take more than a couple of days to get the lyrics finished, now I had a song I could play on an acoustic, but I wasn't sure where it would go from here. I brought it to the studio where my stepsons worked on music and asked if they wouldn't mind learning it real quick and putting down bass and drums, I was still just strumming an acoustic. I think we wen't through the song all of three times and I brought home the acoustic, bass and drum tracks. In the big picture, I wanted this to have electric guitar instead, so I recorded a kind of funky electric riff over the drums and bass, put power chords over the chorus, and then another track of lead throughout the song. The final touch I figured it needed was female backups on the chorus. At the time I was in a cover band and I got the female vocalist from Tastes Like Chicken to sing a three part arrangement I put together, and I figured it was ready for prime time. Since this was the song with the message I made it the title track of my EP, and I rushed it out to CD Baby and all the streaming services. You can check out that version here:

The Covid Sessions - Episode 11 - Summer Special

By Dr Wippit • 12 Nov, 2022
So after ten shows in ten weeks I said enough, I'll get to it when I get to it. I don't know that I put that much more than a week into prepping for this one, I just quit worrying about playing for a while. And then, I gotta put on a show. A weekend alone with the new puppie is perfect. What am I gonna play? I like to open with songs I have no business singing so here's Sarah McLachlan.

The Covid Sessions - Episode 10

By Dr Wippit • 12 Nov, 2022
At some point I had the idea to put Zeppelin's That's the Way together with Pearl Jam's Daughter. I think it was the first time I heard Pearl Jam's Daughter. Turns out the same custom tuning works for both, win win. The tuning break is a little long, but a 10,000 Maniacs song and then another brilliant twofer, Too Late and Too Late.

The Covid Sessions - Episode 9

By Dr Wippit • 20 Jun, 2022
Started with a terribly painful Tracy Chapman. I really do mean well. I'm learning a new show every week, what're you doing? Did you know it's Take a load off Fanny, not Take a load off Annie? The things you learn with an exercise like this one.

The Covid Sessions - Episode 8 - Mother's Day

By Dr Wippit • 20 Jun, 2022
The first Mother's Day of the panedemic calls for another Floyd start, amiright? Little Richard died so I had to lay into some of that. And 16 years after we played it at the Double Door on Mother's Day I played Mama Baby, I'll probably always play that on a Mother's Day gig.

The Covid Sessions - Episode 7

By Dr Wippit • 20 Jun, 2022
Opened with Nobody's Home from Pink Floyd and then into a request. I'll do what I wanna do but maybe what you want to? What you want? The trying to have a full new set list every week has me relying on lyrics and chords on the screen and I can see it. I pick songs that have just always been with me and see if I can. I should leave Zeppelin alone but I'm not gonna.

The Covid Sessions - Episode 6

By Dr Wippit • 11 Jun, 2022
April 26th, 2020 My first attempt to use the looper (Summer Breeze) is a terribly painful four starts, but it gets going eventually, and I need to practice this now. My snide comment about people requesting songs "I already played in other sets" goes to show how seriously I'm taking myself at this point, but really I'm just trying to play a whole new set every week to see if I can do it.

The Covid Sessions - Episode 5

By Dr Wippit • 30 Apr, 2022
April 19th, 2020  That's right I opened the show streaming to the wrong page, the Tastes Like Chicken page. So nobody saw it as it happened, but there it is. The Dr Wippit page stream starts with Margaritaville, a better lock down song to be sure. I got in an original that goes back to Stalemate and one I haven't played alone before (Eyes Wide Open). The switch to electric is the first time I notice a thing where suddenly my petal is way down in volume and I swear I didn't touch it. I think I have that figured out. With the solo at the end it looks like at least the weekly pay is bringing back some old guitar chops. Hey Jealousy - Gin Blossoms (Wrong Page) Margaritaville - Jimmy Buffet All I've Got to Do - The Beatles Mr. BoJangles - Nitty Gritty Dirt Band Eyes Wide Open - Stalemate Peace Train - Cat Stevens I'll Be Your Baby Tonight - Bobby Darin Southern Cross - Crosby, Stills and Nash Fall Down - Toad the Wet Sprocket Wake and Bake - The Kenilworth Project 867-5309 - Tommy Tutone Keep Your Hands to Yourself - Georgia Satellites
More Posts
Share by: