Having played and talked about the song so many times, surprisingly Smith was more than thrilled to talk about it once more. Seeing countless “45” tattoos and hearing fan stories, over 15 years later, Smith is still amazed at how many fans are still connected to the song. When asked why he chose a gun to illustrate the metaphor he simply admitted he did need a powerful image and that it did carry some weight due to the unfortunate fact he had a few friends who met their demise by their own hands in that way. He had been playing music and writing since he was 10, but he never wrote anything like “45”. It was the middle of July so it was about 110 degrees inside the garage and I was just pouring sweat and that’s the vocal you hear.”ĭuring that time in the early 2000s, when Smith was barely 21 years old, “45” was the deepest song he had ever written. “I sang that song in a garage with the smell of lawn equipment, gasoline and all kinds of stuff-just put a mic out there with a popper stopper and that’s what it was. “I remember the vocals on that song, at the time we recorded it about 2001-2002, that vocal was a demo vocal, it was done in a garage with a makeshift door into another kind of studio room in a house in Florida,” he said. It’s really an example of how life is give-and-take.” “I’m singing the song and talking about myself but it’s also a rebirth, coming into adulthood, realizing some of the stuff maybe your parents kept from you to give you a childhood before you had to face the world. “It’s also about reflection and it’s a coming of age story,” he added. The 45 was a metaphor for the world and ‘staring down the barrel of a 45’ was about staring down at this planet and what it throws at you, how you have maneuvered through your life.” And I was like ‘why? When it actually had nothing to do with a gun’. “And I’ll never forget when the song came out, it was our second single from the album and it was banned from MTV because of the video and lyric subject matter. “It’s misunderstood in a lot of ways,” Smith told American Songwriter.
0 kommentar(er)
