Trouble
by Michelle Dockrey & Tony Fabris

You made a sensation
With your mad invitation
And a grin that I thought was meant for me

It shouldn't have shocked me
The way you unlocked me
Too late to run when I gave you the key

But I can't go on racin'
Just to keep the same place, and
Your glass shows you things I'll never be

So the cat's got your tongue now
You're up for some fun now
You still think that you can have your tea and more

Shoulda known
You're trouble
Shoulda known
You're trouble

You remember you know me
You forget what you owe me
Still hiding behind your garden wall

I face my reflection
My body's defection
I still want to come when I hear your call

Ah but that way's been taken
I've eaten my cake and
Already been broken by that fall

I'm done and I'm walking
But you, you're still talking
You think that I haven't heard it all before

Shoulda known
You're trouble
Shoulda known
You're trouble

Never know the time that I wasted
On treats I should never have tasted
You're sweeter than jam tomorrow
But you're never here today

I struggled to master
Every teacup disaster
There was always another storm to brew

How I followed you down, dear
Now you come back around, dear
And there's no path that leads away from you

Don't think I can't hear you
When you talk through the mirror
And the twisting that you believe is true

But you know your part now
I've played my last heart now
Just one sip and I'm right back through your door

Shoulda known
You're trouble
Shoulda known
You're trouble

About the Song

Vixy:
Sometimes, you get involved with someone who is frankly just a hot mess. In hindsight, all the red flags were there all along, obvious and glaring, but at the time you just let yourself get carried away.

Sometimes, after it's all over, the hot mess will come back around acting like nothing really happened. Sometimes they'll even try the same old tricks on you. Don't be fooled. As long as they're still lying to themselves, they'll always be lying to everyone else, too.

About the Songwriting

Vixy:
I've been asked whether this song is meant to be either sung to or from the POV of one or more specific Alice in Wonderland characters. It isn't, really. This was just me using as many Alice metaphors to talk about relationships as I could possibly cram into one song. (One time, Tony referred to them as subtle. They are not subtle.)

At least two exes are being referred to in here (and a third sort of joined the ranks after the fact). Apparently I don't learn so well from my mistakes, come to think of it. I give myself very good advice...

Tony:
The main guitar/bass riff which makes up most of the song's intro and chorus sections, was something I dreamed. I woke up in the wee hours, went into the bathroom, and quietly sang the riff into the recorder app on my iPhone. As always with these kinds of situations, I now live in constant fear that I had dreamed some existing well-known but forgotten song riff, and one day I'll be in an elevator or grocery shopping, and the song will come on the muzak, and I'll have a heart attack right there on the spot.

About the Recording

Vixy:
I have GOT to stop writing songs about my exes. Performing them is all very well, but recording them necessarily means listening over and over and over to both the whole song and bits of the song throughout the mixing process, and it can start to make a person a little cranky.

Of course, when I remarked out loud that I really needed to stop writing breakup songs, my husband Fish replied, "what, and break with literally centuries of tradition?"

Tony:
Definitely the hardest rock number on the album, probably the hardest rock number we've ever written. Most of the production work is intended to convey that classic rock 70's/80's feel. There's deliberate homages in there to Heart, Joan Jett, Rush, and others.

One thing I did was to add distortion and chorus effects to the fiddle and cello, to give them a little bit of a hard rock edge. But even without effects, Betsy and Sunnie always play this song in a style that manages to coax some of that same kind of distorted tone out of their instruments naturally. Still, the the chord "stabs" on the verses were originally doubled by the fiddle, but in the mix, I had to turn the fiddle down on those stabs because it kept sounding like an Omnichord in the final mix. I suppose that in the right situation, an Omnichord can be Totally Metal, but that wasn't working for this one. Luckily the fiddle has plenty of chances to shine elsewhere in the song.

Brian's drums are the solid rock foundation onto which we piled all of our other rocks. His first shot at the part was a bit too intricate, though, losing some of the raw power I was going for. After some poking at it, he came up with the final track which strikes just the right balance between power and intricacy, and it really propels the song in a powerful way.

The bass and the rhythm guitar are fairly straightforward, basically doubling each other note for note, even down to the muted chucka-chucka sounds in the riffs. These were the easiest parts to lay down.

Then we added the strings, which involved a lot of improv and then me picking the bits I liked best out of all the takes. In particular there are some really fast low riffs that Betsy does on the cello in a few spots during each verse, so I tried to make those stand out in the mix. The high keening cellos and fiddles were wonderful, and I have panned them left and right in the mix a little bit, trying to help listeners distinguish between the cello and fiddle parts there.

Vixy was looking for someone to be the Nancy Wilson to her Ann on this song, as it were, and of course Jodi was a great choice. Jodi sent us a great backing vocal track for this one; in particular I like her low, descending "Shoulda known" line on the choruses. Vixy then dropped in a second harmony line to match Jodi, and we were all set for backing vocals. There are some really spine-tingling moments, such as the chord that Vixy and Jodi hit before the last chorus on "right back through your door"... combined with the lead guitar and strings, the song just blazes right there, and I love it.

The lead electric guitar parts were recorded very late in the process, with only a handful of days to go before mastering. I worked very hard to try to make sure the lead guitar and the strings worked together to make things fun and powerful. I was trying to get the guitar to enhance what the lead solo strings were doing, by dancing around them and giving them a bed of texture to sit on top of, then having the guitar come in and fill the gaps between them. I took a lot of messing around and re-takes, probably two or three evenings' worth of recording sessions to get that all just the way I wanted it.

One thing that was particularly fun was a little guitar trick I did... There were some spots that the lead fiddle was playing, where I wanted the fiddle's notes to be fatter and more powerful. I realized that, being a Steve Morse fan, I had already had a great example set for me: Lead guitar harmonizing with the fiddle. There's three spots in the song where it happens, and it was very fun to record those bits. In the final mix, I tried to make sure that it was still clearly legible that it was a fiddle there and not just multitracked guitars.

Vixy says she likes my "meedlies".

Late in the mixing phase, I realized at one point that the rhythm tracks had lost all their punch, and after some reflection, realized why: I'd recorded the lead guitar, liked the way it sounded, then started cranking up the lead fiddle and cello to match. Then I had started cranking up the vocals to be legible over the guitars fiddles, and cellos. Then the backing vocals had to come up to match the lead vocal. Lo and behold, the loser in this arms race was the bed tracks. I went back and started turning all the lead parts back down and remixing the lead guitar. Hopefully I got everything well balanced before we went to master.