Buddhism Gone Bad

My next most popular tune, and one that's generated the most positive feedback, has been Bad Buddhist. It also was featured as a BSWC One-a-Day and played on the associated radio show. It has the distinction of being the only song I've written to date with lyrics.

I've long cultivated an interest in Buddhism, particularly Zen Buddhism (along with Taoism), although I don't think I can claim to be a Buddhist as such. In any case, I occasionally talk about it with friends and coworkers. The idea for the song emerged at some point when I made a sarcastic remark about someone and my cube-mate at work says to me, "I thought you were a Buddhist, aren't Buddhists supposed to show universal compassion?" I replied, "That's true but I'm a bad Buddhist." The lyrics of the song quickly took shape. Basically, I poke fun at some common Buddhist notions (and the Dalai Lama) in the guise of a grizzled cowboy character.

This song also represents my transition from GarageBand to Logic, and it's the first recorded appearance of my new drum set (ddrum's Dominion Pocket Maple series). The basic instrumentation I worked out in GarageBand and then ported it over to Logic when I upgraded. The looped bass line is a Russian Balalaika guitar played on the low end. I muscled it up a bit with a software amplifier. The drums are me playing live straight through, no loops. It's rough in a couple of spots and I miss a fill or two but it was the best take of maybe two dozen that I attempted. It's a quick beat and a challenge for me to sustain accurately for nearly six minutes (yes, I'm an amateur).

To introduce the song, and end it, I use Tibetan singing bowls, which I thought was fitting. The background throughout is a kind of eerie, desolate sounding synthesizer patch that came loaded with Logic. The vocals are me using my best western drawl (I'm originally from Nebraska so it's kind of ingrained). I didn't tamper with the voice much other than to add a little reverb and a low end filter to take out some of the "puffs." I used a naked condenser microphone. I've since picked up a puff guard for it.

But what makes the song, I think, is the guitar. It's probably my best modification of a software instrument. It's a Chinese ruan moon guitar which has a thin, fretty sound. Again, I muscled it up with a software amplifier. Then I pump it through a plugin called Bit Crusher which, along with adding distortion, amplifies the frettiness. This gives it a gnarly, grinding steel sound that's particularly noticeable on the decay of the notes. The guitar solo may also represent my best effort at playing a software instrument with a keyboard. I don't know where the performance came from but I couldn't repeat it again if I wanted to.

Enjoy. Oh, and if you're a Buddhist, please don't be offended. I'm just joking around.