DESCRIPTION:
Tungsten - It’s better to be alone (1997)

A lust for sleep is pushing me
It's the fuel I need
My time in you, keeps you alive
But it wears me thin
I'm so tired of the focus towards others
When there's emptiness in my stare

It's better to be alone.than to
wish you were

I've wasted so much time
The time I need for me
And the time to be alone
It's better to be alone
Than to wish you were

Date Of Lyrics:2-7-1996

Lyrics:Al Hodge

Music: Mark Talamo & Al Hodge

Story Of Song:

“The story behind this one goes as follows: After we finished playing around the clubs for “74” in 1995 and 1996, we wanted to write a rollercoaster of an album. I was totally into compliation tapes at the time with a bunch of stuff I had picked up from Europe after my first trip there in 1995. It was a mix of hardcore stuff and goth rock bands. When it came time to start writing this record (The Survival Kit) Mark Talamo and myself wanted to really extend our wings past the typical “New Orleans” sound (that is defined by, as tuning low and only playing on the last 4 frets of the E string) to us, it was too limiting, and we had a lot more in us than that. This was the record where we started to really get our own identity and seperate from the rest of the bands from down here. We played this one live a few times before we had any lyrics and we called it “ANO” which stood for “Al's New One”. I like that the song was filled with doom parts and some hardcore parts and that we brought back the lead guitar, something that we had avoided since the beginning back in 1985. It had become “cool” to not play leads down here at the time, so we ran the other way and brought them back. Another thing we did was we added some keyboards on this song as well, to give it some more texture. Mark Talamo played the keys on this song. If you listen to the song with headphones on, you can hear the creepy sound of the keys during the chorus. The tail end of the song has a very dirty New Orleans style blues riff that was sort of influenced by the MOTORHEAD song “Metropolis”. As far as the lyrics go, the title says it all “It's better to be alone...than to wish you were”. At the time I was working 2 jobs and juggling a relationship as well. I was dead tired and just wanted a break away from everything and that's what came out in the lyrics”. Al Hodge

The Survival Kit (May 30, 1997)

Al Hodge - Guitars, Vocals
Steve Talamo - Bass, Guitars
Mark Talamo - Drums

Produced by TUNGSTEN
Recorded at H.T. Studios , Chalmette, Louisiana
Engineered by Mark Talamo
Mixed by Al Hodge and Mark Talamo
Mastered by Oscar Broekhuysen
All Songs Copyright Hodge/Talamo/Talamo Pub. / BMI