Day 4: The Scales

Lyrics:
Here comes the reckoning
It all comes down to this one thing
You know what you have done
You'll soon know if you've lost or won
Here comes the final hour
You can't hide in your iron tower
No more, 'til you find your place
Earn your praise or face disgrace

And you know the scales, they measure love
They balance when you have loved enough

Here comes the last report
We'll soon find out if you're long or short
You wait while the jury's out
When it comes back, there'll be no doubt
Hey, hey, it's okay
You took your chance, you had your say
You can't change the magnitude
The die was cast when you made your move

And you know the scales, they measure love
They balance when you love enough

(smokin' guitar solo)
Here comes the reckoning
It all comes down to this one thing
You know what you have done
You'll soon know if you've lost or won
And, yeah, the scales, they measure love
They balance when you have loved enough

Details: All my songs this month have been built around lyrics or grooves, so today I wanted to try building around a riff instead. I don't play up the neck much, so I started further along the fret board than I was familiar with, and that's how I found the hook. I ended up taking it down the neck to my usual finger position, which helped me figure out the next chords and what not.

The riff had kind of a big, dramatic feel to it, and I imagined a couple characters. One was Donald Trump and how he's facing impeachment (while we're on the eve of war, no less). But I wanted this to be a more universal song than that, with fewer presumptions of guilt or innocence. So I also imagined a someone who had finally expressed their romantic longing for a friend and was waiting for a response; that wait can be excruciating.

Instead of a bridge, I decided to leave room for an instrumental break. I'm not the best soloist in the world, so imagine your favorite guitar player ripping into that part.

Anyway, this suprisingly (for such a simple tune) took about 4.5 hours to write, then about 30 minutes to record.