2nd Shift

State Of Bliss - The Demos (1995) — By Thermos on February 19, 2010 at 9:55 am

Thermos:
Though I’ve played guitar for a longer period of time, I still consider myself primarily a bassist. As such, I tend to noodle more on bass than guitar – and, occasionally, a song pops out via a melodic bass-line. “2nd Shift” is one such event. I came up with the bass part initially, then fit chords in around it, happily indulging my penchant for awkward-to-play chords. Lyrics never being my strong suit, I brought the verse/chorus structure to Ingus, and we set about actually making a song. I remember sitting in his parents’ basement and having Ingus tell me, “This needs a bridge.” Dutifully, I came up with the FM7-G6-AM7sus2 bit, and voila! To my best recollection, this is the first song on which Ingus and I fully collaborated, then we followed it up with the re-working of “You Always Wanted” into “Mulberry Bush.”

As with “Mulberry Bush,” the lyrics arose from the working situation Ingus and I shared, getting to the office at about 10-11 PM and working until 6-7 AM (which was technically 3rd shift, but that didn’t quite have the right ring). Totino’s Pizza Rolls™ and rubber band wars were all that kept us on a more or less even keel. Surreptitious Magic the Gathering™ battles with friends we’d sneak in, expeditions into the late-night wasteland of Flint Twp, and watching Marx Brothers movies helped pass the time, as well. Oh yeah, and sleeping. Lots and lots of sleeping. We’d rearrange the office furniture into ad hoc beds and sleep in shifts. And sometimes we even did our work.

Ingus -

Most Toast songs are about girls. Some are about comic books. Many have something to do with Sesame Street in one way or another. This one is about a crappy job.

To elaborate – Thom and I worked from 11:30pm to 8:00am in a tiny office on Miller Road where our only job description was to feed documents into a sheetfed scanner, give them a filename, and when there were enough in the computer, save them all to a VHS tape, then backup said VHS tape. This is the essence of tedium. I’m surprised we didn’t get fired earlier. Oh, did I mention we were the only two people on the night shift? Thus ensuring we spent at least half, and usually more, of the shift goofing off.

And yes, Thom is right. This song would be called “Third Shift”, but we needed another syllable. For real.