PUBLISHED: Dec 23, 2013
DESCRIPTION:
This is my cover of the Police's song "Murder by Numbers" (1983), which has some hard-hitting and poignant lyrics about the nature of those who occupy the highest seats of power within our psychopathological society. (You know, the one we like to think is normal.)
I played it on my deep-space black Fender Standard Stratocaster HSS with the middle and neck single-coil pickups selected -- something I do very rarely -- through my Fender Supersonic 22W amp's "Vintage" (clean) channel. I shaped the sound with a Keeley compressor (all knobs at 12 o'clock), my beloved Hartman Flanger, and a Line 6 DL4 delay (set for a very subtle "Analog Echo").To record it, I played along with the mp3 with my computer speakers and amp huddled around a Samson CO1U microphone into my Mac's Photo Booth program, which reverses the image and I don't know how to fix it.
Once that you've decided on a killing,
First you make a stone of your heart.
And if you find that your hands are still willing,
Then you can turn a murder into art.
It's murder by numbers. One, two, three.
It's as easy to learn as your A,B, C.
Murder by numbers. One, two, three.
It's as easy to learn as your A, B, C.
There really isn't any need for bloodshed,
You just do it with a little more finesse.
If you can slip a tablet into someone's coffee,
Then it avoids an awful lot of mess.
It's murder by numbers. One, two, three.
It's as easy to learn as your A,B, C.
Murder by numbers. One, two, three.
It's as easy to learn as your A, B, C.
Now if you have a taste for this experience
And you're flushed with your very first success,
Then you must try a twosome or a threesome
And you'll find your conscience bothers you much less
Because murder is like anything you take to
It's a habit-forming need for more and more.
You can bump off every member of your family
And anybody else you find a bore
It's murder by numbers. One, two, three.
It's as easy to learn as your A,B, C.
Murder by numbers. One, two, three.
It's as easy to learn as your A, B, C.
Now you can join the ranks of the illustrious
In history's great dark hall of fame.
All our greatest killers were industrious
At least the ones that we all know by name.
But you can reach the top of your profession
If you become the leader of the land,
For murder is the sport of the elected,
And you don't need to lift a finger of your hand
It's murder by numbers. One, two, three.
It's as easy to learn as your A,B, C.
Murder by numbers. One, two, three.
It's as easy to learn as your A, B, C, D, E.
This is what I did to make the chords:
E ------------ 3 ------------ 1 ------------- 0 ----------- 0
B ------------ 3 ------------ 1 ------------- 3 ----------- 3
G ------------ 0 ------------ 0 ------------- 2 ----------- 2
D ------------ X ------------ 3 ------------- 0 ----------- 0
A ------------ 2 ------------ 0 ------------- 2 ------------ 1
E ------------ 0 ------------ X ------------ X ----------- X
At the end of the verse, slide the second to last formation up to the 9th fret, play that. Then lower the first finger one fret and make the melody with the pinky on the B string.
The chorus has the same Em (add9) chord as in the verse, followed by an F-sharp m7 and a GMaj7.