#I bought a bunch of credits for LWL music

[thelaurenshippen]

Hello! I'm loving Breaker Whiskey, it's so beautiful and it's also making me better at Morse Code, lol. I've got a question about episode 60, though, what's the music that's mixed into the morse and static? It sounds like a very old recording, and I love that sort of thing. Thank you for sharing your shows with us!

ahhhh this makes me so happy!! I LOVE that it's getting people into Morse Code, that thrills me.

(some spoilers below about episode 60 of @breakerwhiskey, including additional explanation from me that you may or may not want)

yes, the music mixed into episode 60 IS an old recording! it's a song played on a phonograph - I use a service called Splice to get a lot of the sounds I've put in a bunch of my shows, and there's a pack that's all sounds from vintage audio devices. there's a few of those sounds mixed into episode 60 - a phonograph song, the sounds of wax cylinders being played, and a recording of Thomas Edison explaining the phonograph - all of them distorted to be mostly unrecognizable.

the song file itself is just called 'phonograph song' - I think a bunch of audio engineers just recorded whatever they could off the vintage resources they had - but as far as I was able to glean from the lyrics (they're not that much clearer even undistorted) it's an 1860s confederate rallying song, which I thought would be just about the worst possible thing that you could hear played at random over a radio frequency. I wanted the sounds all together to be menacing, and Whiskey has talked a lot about the myth-making of America vs. the cruel reality, so it felt on theme.

that said, the phonograph sounds were chosen mainly for the literal quality of the sound - that tactile, fuzzy wax static - rather than any true story importance. there are story-relevant sounds mixed in there, but I'm not going to tell you what they are or what they mean!

#breaker whiskey #sorry that the song itself isn't something anyone would want to listen to!!! #but I did think it was interesting/would be absolutely bone chilling to hear in the middle of nowhere #not that whiskey necessarily was hearing the same transmission wE were all hearing #she was camping! #she may not have heard anything at all!! #I also think it's historically FASCINATING that #at the EARLIEST #that recording was made in the late 1870s/1880s #YEARS after the confederacy lost #and like........a bunch of guys got together and STILL decided to sing that song and record it #it really says a lot about a lot you know? #also that it was clearly preserved by SOMEONE #whereas of course a lot of wax cylinder recordings have been lost #though we do have quite a lot!!! #and more are being digitized all the time #but I try to avoid downloading sounds from - like - soundcloud and stuff #where I'm not sure what the licensing/source of it is #which is what's great about splice #I bought a bunch of credits for LWL music #and then had to use them up before 30 days were out #so I downloaded SO many random things #this was like....2 years ago now I guess #I have a bunch of random radio sounds #a lot of atmospheric music that I could use in future projects etc #ANYWAY #that's the story behind the song #lauren answers things