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Boy, You May Think So

by The Hello Stranger

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about

I’m releasing a song today called “Boy, You May Think So”. Some Hello Stranger heads know that this tune is actually an old one, made way back in 2018. It was an unfinished track mostly completed around the time of “Soft World”. I’ve often looked backed fondly on this song because it holds a unique, energetic identity in comparison to other things I have worked on.



Like many other songwriters, this song came about in a period of uncertainty. At that time, I had just graduated college, some social groups that had formed throughout school were falling apart. My band was breaking up. It was one of the last recordings I made in a chaotic household in Boston and is the primary reason one of my roommates across the hall turned on me, when one day I decided to perform the noisy, Nels Cline-ish guitar solos in the middle of the track. I have no regrets about that.



A friend at the time told me about Google Magenta, which, from my understanding, is an AI tool that can recreate and combine sounds given a set of inputs. So you could feed it a drum loop and a flute, and it would make a drum-flute that incorporated both elements into a kind of hybrid tone. There’s something poetic about this concept of inhabiting two forms at once. To hold contradictory feelings within us. To try and create ourselves using the things we admire and dislike. Well, I ran with that. My computer couldn’t handle running Magenta’s complicated calculations on its own so I had to use some of google’s ready made sample tracks. The primary drum loop for this song was ripped straight off of their tutorial site.



The rest is history, I quickly scribbled some impressionistic lyrics about all of my problems “playing me wrong”. I worked at the time nearby a beautiful cathedral and would pass it many times a day. I was obsessed with watching legal cross examinations on YouTube. Thus, the line “the cathedral is dreaming emotional witness”. Some lines, in retrospect, seem strangely prophetic. The uncertainty of that time is summed up in the chorus when the cliched phrase “I’m not getting any younger” is questioned by a supportive, omniscient voice: “Boy, you may think so”.


lyrics

Lyrics:

all of your problems are playing you wrong
the cathedral is dreaming emotional witness
love's new face waiting
the taxi cab's way late
I'm on the phone saying 'boy, can you hear this?'

are we gonna go? can we go any faster?
not getting any younger

stepped on the cable your love's so performative
wasting away yes quit warning me wait for it
i cant face the world so replace with a new one and play something casual

not getting any younger
boy, you may think so

credits

released January 21, 2023
Written, Produced, Mixed, Mastered by the Hello Stranger

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The Hello Stranger Brooklyn, New York

whoisthehellostranger@gmail.com

instagram @the_hello_stranger

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