i've listened to and tweaked around with the eq and compression on clarity all day, and i'm just about to leave it as it is. every time i change something, it becomes something i'm not used to hearing. i operate pretty strongly on intuition. that is, i tend to just fuck with it until it sounds "right". what i'm realizing is that what sounds "right" is the way it sounded 12 years ago, due to listening to it that way so many times. i guess this is a thing that happens, and that we all do it to our own music and the music of others - through repeated listening, the imperfections on the track become a part of the track, to the point that it can't exist without them. i'd bet this frustrates the fuck out of paul mccartney....

even the piano part. it's sloppy. i think i was drunk. i wanted it to have that suave, amateurish new wave bash to it (it's a stylistic trait of mine, through a lot of my recordings), but it came out weirdly meek sounding. like i wanted to smash the keyboard but was drunk. which i think is literally true...

i can't replace it, though. i've mentally cycled through a number of more sophisticated parts, and they all convert the track into something it may have once become but hasn't been since it was created. i've thought about rebashing a little harder, but it's the same fundamental concern.

so, the 2002 instrumental mix is going to be the final mix on this. predictable posting flurry is coming...