Songfacts: "Lonely at the Top"

I wrote this song prior to co-forming the Disliked with former bandmates Ray Wojtowicz, Chris Vermin, Brianne Donnegan (all of whom were in the Яeversatiles with me), and Ryan Bower (formerly of The RUNS). I think at this point I was listening to a lot of The Misfits and watching too many zombie/cannibal movies. In fact, the way the music originally sounded was like Earth AD/Walk Among Us-era Misfits:  Fast, vaguely thrashy 3-chord verses, a longer bridge (sans vocals), and a 2-chord chorus riff with a punchy musical "count off" at the end.

That's not too far off from how the song ended up sounding

Songfacts: "Liberal Stomp"

This song was written entirely by Chris Vermin, and I'm pretty sure it was mainly in response to anti-smoking laws, among other things. The music is a 4-chord progression that never changes and it's very similar to "Social Security" by the Unseen. This was another carry-over from The Яeversatiles days. It's basically about PC, and the restrictions that come along with it. The lyrics are actually pretty funny, if you share our sense of humor. Not many people do, so we don't play this song much any more...

Songfacts: "Sex and Violence" (Exploited cover)

This was one of the few cover songs that actually made it to DCD's early sets, from older bands some of us were in previously (first The Яeversatiles, then later The Disliked). Back in 2001, when I first started trying to form bands with people, I'd insist that the only way it would work was if we based everything we did on 2 songs: "Sex and Violence" by the Exploited, and "Louie Louie".

(Footnote - The Яeversatiles actually did a medley of these two songs, called "Sex with Louie". We'd play the Exploited song forever, then fade out into the opening chords of Louie Louie, while still singing "sex and violence" for the chorus. But that's another story altogether...)

Songfacts: "Plastic"

Although technically a new song, the music was originally a Disliked tune called "Cheap Sex and Canadian Booze", the lyrics for which were written by our (The Disliked's) then-singer, Brianne Donnegan. Basically, we liked the song so much that we decided we had to re-hash it, only with new lyrics.

We also added a third part (the "5-2-10"/"Five-to-ten" riff), after the second chorus (which is where we always seem to shove the third riff to any song). If you can figure out what "5-2-10" means, you're a bigger dork than we are for thinking it was funny enough to include in the final version of the song. Hint: It's not a date.

It would've made more sense for this to have been one of our earlier DCD songs, with Andy replacing me on guitar and me moving over to vocals; but history isn't perfect, and so it took another 3 years for this to actually come together as a song. All things considered, I think it's a damn good one.


The Music

Although I can't remember if it was me or Mario who came up with the music for the verses, I'm almost positive the chorus was all me. The bridge was Ryan's doing, as were most of the lyrics.


The Lyrics

The lyrics can be credited as follows:

Entire first verse, and first half of the chorus - Ryan.
"She's god's gift to all the emo boys" - Can't remember if this was me or Ryan, but it's a good one.
"That ain't me... Oi! Oi! Oi!" - That's all me (obviously).
"She likes indie bands and bad poetry" - Ryan.
"She'll like anything that gives her credibility" - Me.
I think the rest of this verse was just both of us throwing ideas at each other until something finally stuck.

The third verse didn't actually come together until a month or two later, and when we finally came up with something we could agree on, it was like a light bulb went off over both our heads. I think most of it was Ryan saying stuff while I sat there going, "No... no... YEAH!" over and over again until we finally had something that, in retrospect, reads like an assload of product placement:

"She's at the Beehive, smoking Pall Mall cigarettes. Ramen Noodles is the new, hip meal. Went to a record store for Captain Beefheart, but then she settled for Captain and Tenille."

I know that last line was something he'd been kicking around from the beginning, but it didn't really seem to fit or make sense until after the advent of the first two. If that makes any sense.

(By the way, the "Captain Beefheart/Captain and Tenille" joke was based on a line from The Offspring's "Pretty Fly [For a White Guy]". I'll let you guess as to which one.)


References

The terms used in the lyrics are mainly in reference to your stereotypical inner-city dwelling, art school types in their early- to mid-twenties, also known as hipsters; more specifically, hipsters from Pittsburgh (or those from New Castle who've moved to Pittsburgh). Though we have no real ill-will toward hipsters, other than their arrogance and overall fickle taste in anything currently "cutting edge", they are a hell of a lot of fun to poke fun at. Which, in all honesty, is probably something they enjoy anyway.

The funny thing is, half the shit mentioned in this song is stuff at least one or two of us in DCD ourselves enjoy: Chris and I both smoke Pall Malls, Ryan listens to a good amount of indie rock, I'm an agnostic, I'm pretty sure we all like Ramen, and believe it or not, I'm actually writing at this very moment (though I really don't consider myself much of a "writer"). How's that for irony? I was half-tempted several times to throw in a line about PBR, too, but I'm still having trouble admitting that we share that one in common.

Also, we really don't have much of a problem with feminists (reasonable ones, not "man-haters").


Anyway, to avoid further boredom on your part, I'll just sum it up by saying we ended up writing a fairly witty, catchy, and overall awesome little ditty about falling for a girl who's too much of a pseudo-intellectual, arty-farty bitch to be bothered with the likes of actual punk/skinhead types. You'd have to ask Ryan for clues as to who this one's about (assuming it's anything more than good fiction). Cheers.