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Sci-Fi Song #6: Rachel Rosen


Sci-Fi Song #6 was inspired by the Philip K. Dick classic, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. This song is sung from the point of view of the novel's main character, Rick Deckard. I'd like to thank the moderators and members of the SciFi and Fantasy Book Club at Good Reads for picking this as the book of the month for July.

Here are a couple of good recent reviews of the book


  1. Stainless Steel Droppings
  2. Thus Spoketh Terje

Here are some of the tools that I used to record the track:

  1. Martin Acoustic Guitar in DADGAD tuning
  2. Les Paul Studio Electric Guitar
  3. Washburn Bass Guitar
  4. Rode NT-3 microphone (to record the acoustic guitar and my vocals)
  5. Apple Logic Pro 7 recording software
    1. The ES2 software synth for the synthesizer solo
    2. Logic's included compressor, delay, and reverb plug-ins
    3. The electric guitar parts were recorded through Logic's Guitar Amp Pro plug-in
    4. The drum parts were created using Beta Monkey's Drum Werks V loop collection

Hope you enjoy it,
John

Here are the lyrics:

Rachel Rosen (Is She Really an Android?)

My name is Rick Deckard, I'm in my hover car
I'm a bounty hunter for the city
There's six androids free, and it's left to me tonight

They're the Nexus 6 and they get their kicks
From singing opera and killing humans
She's got short dark hair and an icy stare, alright

Is Rachel Rosen really an android
Can Rachel Rosen really be alive
Is Rachel Rosen really an android
Can Rachel Rosen really be alive

I give the Voigt-Kampff test to bounty hunter Phil Resch
cause he fears that he might be an android
He's got a laser tube and a bad attitude, tonight

I book a hotel room, I hope she gets here soon
I've got three androids to retire
We share an android kiss at the St. Francis tonight

5 comments:

  1. That was really fun and so not what I expected, which was something much more techno. And by not being something techno I actually like this quite a bit more than I anticipated. Not that techno is bad but this is such an interesting musical take on the story. Very well done. The chorus will be humming in my head all day! Thanks for stopping by and letting me know about this.

    I applaud your creativity. The wonderful thing about the internet is finding all these people, yourself included, who are taking their passions and their talents and are joining them together in creative ways. It is so inspiring and fun to witness.

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  2. John, just want to pass on that I pretty much headed up this weeks program with Rachel Rosen plus a mention in the program's blog. If your interested the song is in show 119 of Beam Me Up. Please keep me in the loop when you have new releases and I can promise they will get played. I really love this idea and it fit in with the program's theme. Cant wait for the next!

    Paul

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  3. Carl: Thanks for stopping by and checking out the song. I initially thought that the song would evolve into a more techno sounding piece myself, but it just didn't turn out that way. Glad to hear that you liked the finished product.

    Thanks for the kind words and thanks for writing the excellent piece on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep at Stainless Steel Droppings.

    John

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  4. Paul,
    I listened to the last two episodes of Beam Me Up this weekend. I really enjoyed them. I think the show is a great mix of science and science fiction. I also like how you ended both shows with a reading of a sci-fi short story.
    Thanks so much for playing the song and devoting so much airtime to Sci-Fi Songs. It is greatly appreciated. Keep up the good work and I'll keep you up to date on when I post new songs.

    John

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  5. a real rare name for a song, I think that sound more normal "do robots dreams in Buy Viagra" but well everyone is free to call them song as them want.

    ReplyDelete