2005-05-04

12 Brothers - The Music: Investment

Here is the Investment demo I recorded about a week ago. The music was actually written a week before that. I was getting ahead of the game, but can you blame me? You'l notice I play he verse part over without any words, that's where you come in. Even with that fourth verse, it's still under three minutes.

5 comments:

Jeremy said...

Impressions on this song:

I always pictured this song as a fast one. Like in the first verse when the manager is talking to #12. I always thought there was some very demeaning, attitudinal action going on there. I mean, this works, too. Just not how I imagined it.

I really like the chorus. Well done. Almost a little chilling.

I should be able to come up with some more lyrics, but I'm still trying to figure out your melody. I'll have to listen to it a few more times to get the feel of it.

On the added verses front, here's what I'd like to see:

V1
V2
C1
V3
V4
C1
In here is the empty portion like you have it now. Leave it empty. It signifies seven years passing by.
C2 sung in the faster style like when you sing C1 at the end in your demo. I think you'll find that the melody will work with the C2 lyrics.


What do you think?

Joshua Provost said...

Yeh, that structure works, but to flow it'll have to be something like: "cattle options expired this very year/too late to sell them, you'll go hungry I fear"

Jeremy said...

Actually, I just realized that "sell" isn't the right word for these options and the scenario that we're talking about.

C1 should change from:

you can sell them
in two thousand eleven


To:

excersize them
in two thousand eleven


Which means that C2 will need to change somehow, too. Maybe something like "if you did not buy, you'll go hungry i fear."

I'm not sure if you know how options work. It's some pretty complicated stuff.

Essentially, in 2004 they purchase an option to buy cattle in 2011 at a certain price (higher than the current price, but ideally lower than the actual price that cattle will cost in the year that the option expires). They pay a small percentage of the total just for the option to buy at that price.

Cut to 2011. If the price of cattle has gone up (which in our case it has gone way up!) above the price of the option then you would go ahead and purchase the cattle at the option price (which happens to be much lower than the 2011 going rate). If the price of cattle did not go up then there would be no point in excersizing the option and you're loss would just be the price that you paid for the option.

Does any of this make sense?

Here's some bogus example figures:

2004 actual price of cattle: $5/pound
------------------------------
2004 option purchased for 1 mil pounds of cattle.
Option price: $7.5/pound
Up front option cost: $150k

2011 actual price of cattle: $15/pound
------------------------------
So you would excersize your option. You buy your 1 mil pounds of cattle, but at the $7.5/pound price. Thus ...
You pay: $7.5 mil + $150k = $7.65 mil
You then turn around and instantly sell for this amount: $15 mil
Giving you a profit of: $7.35 mil

This is just a simplified example.

And now that I've run through this entire scenario I see that there is in fact a sell going on. That's when you make your profit. And if they don't sell them in 2011 we know what happens: cattle starts tanking for the next seven years so they'd lose any profit they would have gained by selling (plus losing their initial investment). OK, so here's what I'm saying. Go with "excersize them" in C1. In C2 you could go with either "sell" or "buy", but technically it is only by buying and then failing to sell that they would be left destitute. So I guess I would go with "sell" in C2.

Do you think this is just too complicated to make a song out of it?

Joshua Provost said...

Very well, Mr. Fidelity. Yes, I know how it works. We have the same grandfather.

I think it's way too complicated to tailor the lyrics too closely to reality, if it makes it unsingable.

Make the changes, and I'll try it out.

Brock said...

I need to catch up on all of this...