Adventure Thing #2.12 - "Dancing Underneath A Gun" & The Future Imperfect Part 2 (Patreon)

Greetings all - We're back to our regularly scheduled adventure things now that our "Sing on the Album" post is live, and this one has a very interesting backstory.

Unreleased Track  - "Dancing Underneath A Gun"

This is one that I cowrote in April of 2010 with Andrew McMahon (Something Corporate, Jack's Mannequin, Andrew McMahon In The Wilderness). I actually really love this song, but in listening back to it it very much sounded more like an Andrew McMahon song than something that made sense for I Fight Dragons. He clearly agreed, as he actually released a version of this song on his "People and Things" Jack's Mannequin album as a bonus track.

It's a very spare demo with Andrew on piano and me on guitar, just recorded into his laptop microphone (and with a cameo from his dog shaking his collar at the beginning), but I think that adds to the charm.

Semi-Released Tracks - The Future Imperfect Part 2

The second batch of songs that didn't end up making The Near Future, these tracks are a bunch of odds and ends from 2012 and 2013 that I think are still nice, but definitely ended up feeling like b-sides to me.

• "Dreams And Lies" - probably my most obvious song about my disenchantment with the process of trying to grind out a "no-brainer smash hit single" during my songwriting time while on the label. I think I've always resisted releasing this because it just sounds so mopey to me in hindsight. I still have a very vivid memory of writing this song by myself late one night in Matt Mahaffey's basement in Nashville during one of my writing trips. But just for fun, I've included both the iPhone demo that was on The Future Imperfect, and also a "v2" where Packy, Bill, and I experimented with an oddball vocal arrangement that lives somewhere between Crosby Stills and Nash and Kings of Convenience after the first chorus
• "Buy Buy Buy" - this was an interesting one with a lyrical theme in the vein of songs like "Money", "No Kontrol", and "Pretend", where I was vaguely trying to ape the weirdo song structure of "Paperback Writer". An odd little nugget for sure. I also happen to have a vivid memory of the day I wrote this one as I was wandering around St. Louis while my wife was at an academic conference at Washington University. I think it was actually the same trip where I wrote the lyrics for "Seek and Destroy".
• "Steady and Slow" - this song actually holds an interesting distinction as the first time we experimented with an odd time signature (most of it is in 7/8). It came organically out of the band rehearsal sessions during The Near Future when we were trying to flex our proggy muscles, and is directly related to decisions like "Battle" ultimately being in 7/8. You can also lyrically tell that at this point I'm still trying to fight my way out of the hole represented in "Dreams and Lies", but by this point I was definitely feeling more optimistic :)