I'm having trouble remembering when I wrote "The Trouble With Symbols." I feel as if I wrote it near the end of 2004 to the beginning of 2005, but some of the riffs are pretty old. By this point in my life, I'd grown pretty cynical about people's personal symbols and the weight they apply to them. The song doesn't have any direct influence from any one person, but I met a lot of people like the character in the song in University. I laid it on deliberately thick, but that's OK; people who identify with symbols do it first.
I recorded the eBow in Abbotsford, BC, while I was on my teaching practicum in 2005. I'd hoped to leave it at that, with a couple of the fingerpicked big lead riffs, but the song simply sounded too otherworldly to handle without a few simple, easy-to recognize instruments. The eBow's tough to control with heavy strings, so I have to mainly work with sustained notes. The drum track took a lot of time, too.
credits
from Once and Over Again,
released September 22, 2007
Jeffrey Nordstrom: vocals, guitars, bass, harmonica, programming.
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