Now for number 4 in the "story behind the song" series, The Ritual. This one is a bit like "The Chameleon" in that it underwent some drastic changes very late in the game.  The main synth line and the guitar line were a lot different up until the mixing stage when it became apparent that something just wasn't working. I started making adjustments to the guitar line but no matter what I did it continued to clash badly with the main synth which originally had a heavy delay effect that created a very busy echoing.  It sounded great without the guitar line but the two together were not working at all and even a very simplified guitar line didn't seem to help.  I have to admit that there came a point when I was ready to scrap the whole thing but after taking a break from it for a few days I decided to come at it from a different angle. I scrapped the original main snyth track and the guitar tracks and even re-worked some other tracks and finally got everything where it made a lot more sense.

The idea for the lyrics came from some very personal experiences described in a very abstract way and are a little bit like "Sysyphus Situation" describing the kinds of things we do or let be done to us on a regular basis that are not particularly good for our physical or mental health. The obscure religious references are something that always seem to come out once in a while, the result of a childhood spent in a fairly serious Catholic home and school perhaps?  Like I've said before, I'm not religious but I still find the human need for rituals and irrational belief systems quite fascinating.

Stay tuned for more next week...