"441" Song Notes by Glenn Holland
Here are some notes and memories from Glenn Holland on 441's first record...
Judgement Game
This was a John Mac song and he wrote all the words, lyrics and chords. This was a fairly early song for the band to work on, after the earliest tunes like Break Out and Love’s Irony. I recall spending a lot of time in the garage crafting this as a band. The beginning bass line was somewhat inspired by the first bass line I ever learned – “Mystery Achievement” by the Pretenders. I had been playing for only two years so I guess that was rather recent. My input to John G. was to play the fifths off of what I was doing in a sort of Police-y fashion.
I tried to add my nouveau sensibilities to the bass work, illustrated in my use of G – D – C on the chorus for the G – B-minor – A minor chords (like anyone would notice that). But perhaps it gave it just a little bit of a different sound, which I guess was the aim.
I recall Mac was influenced by The Jam and Violent Femmes at the time and his input to the bassline on the verse reflects that.
We were actually pretty proud of this song, evidenced by the number one position on both our demo and on the record.
Doug Doyle cleaned some things up on the arrangement which made it a better crafted song. Ultimately, it was one of the more mediocre of our catalog, but it did establish the 441 sound and style – new music with good pop sensibilities and insightful lyrics that were unafraid.
Love’s Irony
Another song penned by McNamara with the stark keyboard lines supplied by me and John G. This was the first tune on which we experimented with synthesizer, by virtue of borrowing a unit for a few weeks.
Even more than Judgement Game, Love’s Irony established our sound and attitude. The song’s about the pain of loss and is clearly about a love relationship. We had no problems singing about life with little concern of having some sort of “Jesus quota” in each song.
Doug Doyle took the punk-ish driving beat that with which we arrived at 3D Studios in the Spring of ’84 and worked with Steve for the more alluring tribal/Adam Ant – tom groove. It really brought the song up a few notches.
The song is highlighted by my sort of bass solo in the break. I hardly considered myself Jaco Pastorious, yet a certain amount of progressive rock influence motivated me to do something a little different. Ultimately, the bass part was too elementary. Later, I recrafted the part to be more involved and energetic, which I performed during our shows.
I don’t think LI is the best song we ever wrote, but it had a special intensity that resonated with us and the crowd.
Fish On The Car
My experimentation with the synthesizer started to develop as is evidenced in this excellent song. John M. and I both had a certain cynical-outcast eye towards a lot of Christian Parade in Southern California and John crafted what I think are masterful lyrics.
I took his acoustic arrangement with the descending notes underlying the A chords and the nice intro/bridge section and came up with probably the most instantly recognizable start to any of our songs. By the time this song was released and received radio play on KYMS (the irony of all ironies) audiences would break into cheer by the second note of the intro keyboard line. That caused a few flubs on my part at some shows, which was quite embarrassing, but there is nothing like a response like that.
Mom & Dad
Another McNamara song, John’s sentiments continued to show we wished to sing about things that may not be “cool” or even proper or popular, but was our particular calling. This was always a fun song to play live – a sort of laid back rocker with none of the strange evidences of songs like “Fish” or “Show Me.”
Show Me
Show Me was sort of an enigma as some people (including some in the band) grew weary of the song while others thought it was a superb anthem. I’m not sure it’s one of our best, but it played a key role in the overall quality of the record.
I ended up playing this song on keyboards, a la Ojo Taylor of Undercover, when we performed live.
The chorus is effective, as I’m sure many people have walked away hearing those words in their heads, which is the whole point after all is said and done.
Break Out
This song really made it all happen for us. This was all McNamara, and I believe he even had the drum concept in his head. It didn’t take too long to put together, and I don’t think it was any of our favorite songs.
But, you had to be dead not to react to this tune. The beat, the melodies and words are near-perfect early rock/pop.
Once the record was done, the people in our corner worked hard to get something from the album played on local Christian pop station KYMS. As what was surely done to get us all off his back, the program director there grudgingly agreed to play one of our tunes. We would have preferred a song like “In His Presence” but he chose this one.
As Steve mentioned in his bio, if you’ve ever seen the movie “That Thing You Do!” about a fledgling music group, the scene where they heard their tune on the radio for the first time was not too far off from what happened with us.
It was early morning and I was actually asleep at the time, but with my stereo turned on and tuned to the station in my daily vigil to hopefully hear one of our tunes. As you can figure, I thought I was dreaming when I heard it.
That indulgence of hearing your own song on the radio is all well and good, but what happened after that was extraordinary, as “Break Out” resonated with many of the listeners and was the number one most requested song on the station the first week it was played, to the dismay of that program director and all the CCM Establishment, to be sure.
A few weeks later, when our album was released, we shocked again as “441” was the top selling album in the Christian record stores in its very first week of release beating out, of all bands, U2 and “The Unforgettable Fire.” Bono has no idea who I am, but for one week… well, you get the picture. I’ll never forget it and every time I hear those first few beats of Steve’s drums, I think back to those days in late ’84.
In His Presence
In His Presence was my first attempt at writing a song. I do not consider myself anywhere near the complete songwriter that John is and certainly his work on this song helped make it what it was. But, it was gratifying to come up with the parts I did. The song also represents the first time the band really put something special together. John Giali was able to craft an ideal guitar part in the lead section and the song was perfect for Steve to unleash his boundless energy.
You can definitely hear the U2 and Police influences, but we were a young band still developing our own sound. Frankly, I don’t feel at all embarrassed if some of those influences show through. U2 proved long ago they are one of the most important bands in rock history.
Like Break Out, this song surprised us with the immediate response it received. In our first concert as 441, at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa in early Spring 1984, we opened for Benny Hester. Benny was quite popular at the time and, consequently, the room was packed. We played In His Presence last and the crowd really responded. Quite a blessing.
Looking At You
Next time you have ten minutes, write a song and see how good it is. That’s what McNamara did with this one – as much a slam-dunk as we ever had (the opposite of “This Is Love”). A great song to have in your hip pocket for a gig or a record.