She's a Hack!

by @carleybaer

Liner Notes

#lofi #spoken-word #inner-critic

This one goes out to my inner critic who's been a total perfectionist A-hole since FAWM started. Not with the writing, because we've come to an understanding on that. Now it's all about the recording process. This is basically my imposter syndrome put to a drum beat. Enjoy

Lyrics

All I wanna do is cut a track But the roar of the traffic won’t cut me slack So what I gotta do is take it back To when a little bit of noise didn’t do me like that

The trouble is, I never really got it Logic came after Garageband so I bought it It’s meatball surgery I can’t defend it But no time for a remedy before I send it

She’s a hack (hack!) hack (hack!) Couldn’t cut it in recording school, got the sack See red on the meter, I just paint it black Cuz she’s a…. hack

All I wanna do is make a song But there’s so many itty bitty things I’m doing wrong Get Chuck Barris in here, somebody bang the gong Cuz you can tell by my workflow that I don’t belong

I’m still not really sure how to create a group If I can’t play the instrument I make a loop I don’t know about EQ it’s just a silly little swoop Now we’re cooking like it’s kitchen sink soup

She’s a hack (hack!) hack (hack!) Don’t understand compression, feel like I’m under attack And can you put it on a group? How do you sum a stack? She’s a… hack

Isolation booth or acoustic treatment? Neither one, there’s a standard and we’re well beneath it And that window on the main street is single pane Just plug in another instrument and boost the gain

She’s a hack (hack!) hack (hack!) The musical equivalent of a medical quack Yeah she’ll give it a whirl but this girl is whack She’s a… hack She’s a hack (hack!) hack (hack!) It’s all out in the open now can’t go back Maybe time to take a break and make a snack She’s a… hack

Comments

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This is hilarious, and I absolutely love your flow! Way to stick it to that inner critic.

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@erbaer

So good! Here's what I love about this... on the surface it's self-criticism by the narrator ( a hack) but it is full of clever technical shortcuts for beginners ( a hack) . It's also a checklist for things I aspire to someday worry about.

[avatar]

Super fun and honest and relate-able. Plus is sounds whack. Old school whack and that's the best kind of whack. Well done! :)

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@akivoz

Oh I love this so much its so fun and made me crack up, now im just singing Hack Hack!

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Ha! I love it! It’s so funny because just before I clicked on your song I had been listening to songs on the recommended thread, and I was wondering to myself, “Why am I even here?” On a scale of 1 to 10, I know about .5 re: recording and production, and it seems like that isn’t enough for this FAWMing thing. Anyway, I was spiraling down a hole of self-doubt, but this fun song picked me right up out of it. Thank you!

[avatar]
@analogj

CB, this is my favorite song I've heard this week. This is SO spot on, funny, cool, and rhythmically neat with great syncopation. One of your best!

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Shit, this rocks. I love it. Concept, delivery, and sound are perfect, down to the narrated fade out. This could have been a little throwaway novelty tune, but you've shaped it into something really cool. Reminds me a bit of Nellie McKay, but has you all over it.

[avatar]
@enzo

I love your word play. So many wonderful rhymes about geeky studio stuff…I can relate! You really found a gold mine of ack rhymes here…..AND…no way your a Quack!

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dang, girl. ai was grooving along for sure. Give that inner critic a cupcake, she is working too hard. This is just so great. My inner critic is still mostly willing to focus on making damn sure we don’t release anything into the wider world with occasional forays into singing and playing. I got by for a long time with having started from nowhere so what could she possibly expect, but I do notice the better I get the more she ups her game.

[avatar]

Omg I love this. Nice work Carley! You can excel in so many genres and moods.

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This is extremely fun, I love how well you adapt to different genres.

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@leepat

enjoyed! if you didn’t have fun compressing, you did have some decompressing (rhyming) and channeling Salt’n’Pepa (?)

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@skyezor

this is great and so relatable, also-your tracks always sound great to me dude. seriously! no hacks in here...just badass bad song boss bi#ches! <3

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I think our inner critics are twins separated at birth. This rocks.

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Amazing! Admittedly I feel like I’m squarely in the target market, but several lines had me laughing out loud: the compression/attack pun, plug in another instrument and boost the gain (all been there), and then the ‘how do you fade out’ at the end 😂 But, as you say, it gets the job done. And that’s the main thing. Also fwiw I’ve always been super impressed with the production quality on your tracks, separate from the stellar writing 👍

[avatar]

Wazzap @carleybaer, the question you have to ask yourself is, are you even good enough to be an imposter? hehehe

I identify with this hectically. PROGRESS NOT PERFECTION. You have nailed that whole omg its not finished aaaaaaaaaa thing.

Congrats on uploading it.

A thing I read recently framed it as, instead of imposter syndrome, maybe think about it in terms of fantastic scammer syndrome: nobody has detected you yet. FANTASTIC!

Day 17883: They still suspect nothing. Fools!

[FAWM]
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