Opposites [Opuestos]

Lyrics:

When I’m up, then you’re down
When I’m lonely, you’re not around
When I’m happy, don’t be sad
Just think of the good times that we had

Opposites attract, everybody knows
These days won’t roll around again
We’ll never get ‘em back, but maybe when we’re old
We can say, “Remember when?”

When you’re up, then I’m down
When you’re lonely, I can’t be found
You’re happy, then I’m sad
I think about the good times that we had

Lyrics and Music by Dave Ryder and Dan McHugh.
Copyright 2010. All Rights Reserved.

Info regarding the lyrics and recording the music:

This song took many forms before it reached it’s final shape. One of the biggest hurdles we had to overcome was the arrangement – we knew we liked the intro, verses, chorus and tag, but it wasn’t easy for us to seamlessly go from one part to another. We also wanted a bridge section, and we wrote and discarded several before having the idea of using the intro as a sort of bridge, leading into the tag (which features Dan’s incredible rhythm guitar playing).

At that point we realized we had nailed the arrangement, so simple and easy in retrospect – but it had us scratching our heads for awhile.

The whole concept of “opposites” had been bouncing around in my head for awhile, and everybody has heard the notion that “opposites attract” one another. Which is very much the situation between Ulises and Calypso – male vs female, town mouse vs city mouse, even their personalities: Ulises is the strong, silent type; Calypso is vocal and critical, and gets on Ulises nerves. Yet there is an undeniable attraction they feel towards each other that goes beyond the fact that they are both quite handsome/beautiful.

Their relationship is also echoing very real undercurrents of dissatisfaction felt by both parties in our current US-Mexican border situation – Ulises feels that Calypso is a spoiled, over-entitled product of an American society that feels superior to other nationalities. Calypso feels that Ulises is an arrogant, male chauvinist with coarse manners and questionable ethics.

Shakespeare wrote of the powerful effect of opposite attraction, his star-crossed lovers Romeo and Juliet are perfect exemplars:

O brawling love, O loving hate,
O any thing of nothing first create!
O heavy lightness, serious vanity,
Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms,
Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health,
Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!

The idea of the Earth’s magnetic field influencing us is no more far-fetched to me than say, the positions of the stars or the fullness of the moon. Who can truly say what love is, and how it affects or controls our behavior? Ulysses spent 10 years of his life fighting a war over the love of a woman…

I altered the image of the Earth’s magnet field from it’s original version in a couple of ways: I layered a photo of earth taken by the astronauts of Apollo 17 over the circle representing earth, and I ran it through several GIMP filters, darkening and eroding the lines of magnetism. To me it is symbolic of the desperate situation our protagonists find themselves in, their outward personas a falsehood, pretending to be people they would despise in the real world. Certainly the constant deception and brutal decisions Ulises is forced to make simply to stay alive erodes his sense of honor and integrity.

To view the full size version of Earth’s Magnetic Field (edited) click here.