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Role in the Album Concept

Every song on the album represents an element of my life falling apart. “I Can’t Tell” represents hip-hop, and I don’t mean that in the sense of music quality but rather the intent of its creators. It’s become increasingly difficult to determine everyone’s motives. To a degree, it seemed as though everyone wanted to impact the genre to some degree, but now it seems like many artists are content with fifteen minutes of fame as long as the paycheck is substantial enough. The goal of this song was not to hate on the newer generation but to question, in a sarcastic tone, if enough is being done to advance the culture.

Writing: Thank Cudi

This was actually the first song I started writing for In/Stability and it dates back as far as 2013! I discussed this on Episode 17 of Rootbeer & Rawhide Rate Rappers, by the way, without giving the song’s name. It was this one.

Basically, I was traveling upstate to Potsdam where Rawhide and I were doing a show together. On those trips I always burned several CDs (no AUX port or USB in my old car) to check out new music while driving. On this particular adventure I was listening to Kid Cudi’s Indicud for the first time. The intro, “The Resurrection of Scott Mescudi,” seemed to open some floodgate in my mind because I just started thinking of lines. I dug through my center console for any piece of paper I could find, which ended up being some car insurance paperwork. I drove with one hand on the wheel, trying to press the piece of paper in the center so I could write down everything that came to mind.

As the song transitioned into “Unfuckwittable” and then “Just What I Am,” I found myself pausing the music repeatedly to jot down more lyrics.

There was one problem with these lyrics, however. They did not feel like family with the other songs I had been writing. See, by this point Fear of Success was mostly written. I considered splitting the album into two parts and calling the project Short Shifts, Long Lunches, but that Lunches disc started becoming more of a junk drawer. So some of the songs moved back to Fear of Success, others showed up on Rootbeer Ruins Everything and the rest just never got finished. But “I Can’t Tell” was a song I had bigger plans for. Some time later, Chris Prythm published a beat in June 2014 called “Never Break” which I immediately knew would fit with the song I had written that day.

Recording: Thank Rawhide

I tried recording the song more times than I can count over the course of about 5 years. On three separate occasions I was satisfied with what I had put together, but when I went back to listen later on I changed my mind. As a result, “I Can’t Tell” was actually the second-to-last song I recorded the final vocals for on In/Stability, despite it being the first song written by a considerable amount of time.

Still, even with vocals I was happy with, the beat still felt like it overpowered me at times. One day while Rawhide was visiting I played the song for him in the car, giving him a stripped-down explanation of what I thought the problem was, but not going into too much detail so he could form his own opinion. At this time, the synths that kick in during the last bar of each verse were actually going all through the song except for the first half of the second verse. Rawhide suggested taking that part of the second verse and looping it for all of the verses. That ended up saving the song. He addresses that in his review below.

Rawhide Report

Oh man, I know I’ve heard this song before now, when I was last at your place. Now that I have an actual copy of it to listen to whenever I want, I gotta say that this shit slaps. Just like with “These Things Happen.” The beat, lyrics, delivery, and attitude all come together to produce something that gets me hype. I’m glad you decided to redo the structure of the verses in the beat after we talked about it, the song just flows so perfectly. This song is in some pretty stiff competition with “These Things Happen” as my favorite of the album so far. The acapella at the end of this track might be my favorite acapella verse of yours on the album. Not only does it set up [REDACTED] perfectly, but the religious indignation that you portray gets my atheist blood pumping.