Oh Boy track by track part 2 - Hands (Hamlet context dump incoming)
"Oh Boy" the play is a twisted disco version of Hamlet that unfolds in small town Ontario, and so "Hands" is a track that is about my impression of Claudius, in this case renamed Colonel Uncle Arvin by Kosta, the playwright.
Arvin/Claudius is portrayed as a military man, his kingdom a disco bar (Colonel Uncle Arvin's Family Style Restaurant and Dancehall) in small town Ontario rather than all of Denmark. He is deeply inhibited, brutish, scheming, and prone to emotional outbursts that he barely masks with a deep cynicism.
This song was composed for his entrance - a dance solo. He is a limbering, awkwardly masculine dancer and so I wanted the track to feature an uneven rhythm despite the rigid 4/4 of disco - hence the chorus bassline actually comes in before the drums instead of being locked in, creating a sense of pulling against the beat as if to wrest control of the rhythm like the feelings of anger and anxiety driving him.
And so the lyrics too follow the theme of his internal conflict. I know anxiety and panic, and the song recounts the feelings of being controlled by anxiety, the "commotion" being the loss of control of a meltdown or panic attack.
Men like Arvin do not wear their emotions on their sleeve, so I couldn't make it direct. Instead I tried to write as the older, more inhibited generations do - using poetic language to obscure the meaning. This is the realm of "feeling like a shadow/drifting like a leaf*" not "I spend my waking hours haunting my own life/I made the one I love start crying tonight**"
The track was mixed and edited by Mark Plati, who produced David Bowie's Earthling and Toy albums and who I actually saw play guitar for him when I was 13 and had the luck of seeing Bowie in Toronto. He is an incredibly talented musical mind and much like Erin Tonkon did to my other tracks he worked some magic to where it really came alive compares to my rough mix. It's amazing being able to have these experienced and brilliant hands on deck, and I learned a lot from both of them.
An example of Plati's work with Bowie - check out the explosion of the chorus, what a dynamic track. Loved this one in my youth.
**Spiteful Intervention - of Montreal
