Reach Out and Touch the Hand (c) 2003 by Lewis D'Aubin PREV TRACK NEXT TRACK The hand It's following you Without an arm Without a clue You can't understand Why... it's still alive You'd think you'd have to run In order to survive - but you could reach out Reach out and touch the hand Get a grip Try to understand Life these days, it never goes as planned So go ahead - and touch the hand Touch the hand, touch the hand, touch the HAND! The hand It doesn't follow commands Like sit, or stay It doesn't understand What does it want? You can't comprehend A handshake? Love? Or a sequined glove? This torture will never end Until you reach out Reach out and touch the hand The hand you're dealt Is not yours to demand And life these days, it never goes as planned So go ahead - and touch the hand! But... forgive me Lord, for I have sinned against Music Mangled the melody, torn and abused it The words and lyrics, I have confused them yeah Somebody lend me a hand that's connected Not one that's crawling around and infected Don't point the finger if it's not protected, yeah Just touch the hand, touch the hand, touch the HAND! The hand... it's now around your neck! It's strangling you! You ask me, "what the heck? Whaddid I do? Do? To deserve this?" Then you look at your arm... it's amputated at the wrist! I told ya reach out - reach out and touch the hand Why'd ya listen to me? I'm just the singer in a band Next time... think for yourself - Take a stand You should not... have touched the hand! I repeat... don't touch the hand! I do declare... don't touch the hand! Hey you over there... don't touch the hand! Attencion... n'est touchez pas le main! I cannot stress strongly enough... don't touch the hand! Oh no... run away Here comes the hand!!!

"Uhhh, Lab Girl, can you lend us a hand?" "I think I saw a hand over here in a jar!" "No no no no no, don't touch tha..." "Ewwww, it's crawling around all over the floor! Do you still want it?" Early in 2003 I was having lunch with Chris Flattmann, my former bassist. While munching on his shrimp poboy, Chris casually mentioned that he had discovered that singing like Neil Diamond was the same as singing like James Hetfield of Metallica. Whoa. The awful truth of this amazing concept sunk in and stayed with me until a couple weeks later when I was eating dinner with my wife. I was eating a shrimp poboy when suddenly I began laughing uncontrollably. "Uh oh," said Jeannine... "either you've lost your mind or you just wrote another new song." She was right! On both counts! At the next C.O.G. practice I demoed the first verse and chorus of this song to the band. By the next practice I had the bridge and the rest of the lyrics. This awful ballad came right on the heels of 'I Have the Power' and chordally they're kind of similar. Recording this puppy took a little bit of time. The drums I played on the demo were tweaked a little but essentially preserved. I had to reperform the lead vocals a few times to get the authentic Neil Diamond 'feel'. It's also worth noting that this was the only song I used the Antares Mic Modelling plugin on, in order to make my AKG C3000 sound a little more like an old Neumann U87. In the end, the lead vocals were easy, but the background harmony 'ahhhh' vocals were really NOT and I spent a week punching away at them until I was happy. We also got the whole band and my wife to lay down the gang vocals on the end. Then I got my friend Emkay Anderson to come in to replace my mickey mouse piano parts with real meaty chords - unlike most C.O.G. songs, the piano is the center of this song. For guitars, we used Jeff's Ovation through the POD XT on one channel, and my friend D.J. Ragas's beautiful Ibanez acoustic on the other. And as usual, Jim recorded his Musicman bass digitally through the Johnson J-Station. It's also worth noting that I was never happy with this song's mix until I came up with my multiband re-mastering technique, during the final month of production on 'In C.O.G. We Trust'. I developed the approach essentially to keep from having to remix this song and it worked so well, I applied it to most of the other mixes. Credits Drums...........drumbot Guitars.........Jeff King Bass............Jim Fairchild Piano...........Emkay Anderson Synthesizer.....Lewis D'Aubin Lead vocal......Lewis D'Aubin Backing vocals..Lewis D'Aubin, Beth Patterson Recorded and mixed 2003 at C.O.G. Secret Lab, Harahan LA