Hide the Stones With Flowers

## Lyrics

EMILY:

Hide the Stones with Flowers

Hold the world with velvet gloves

Only pleasing things to look at

Don’t show anything unloved

You can’t see the truth

‘Cause we want you to

See only the things

We want you to see

Hide the Stones with Flowers

Hold the world with velvet gloves

Only pleasing things to look at

Don’t supply the clarity

Hide the Stones with Flowers

Hold the world with velvet gloves

Only pleasing things to look at

Don’t show anything unloved

We’re here to help you

Please look this way and

Ignore that mistake

I’m convinced it’s fake

Usher you inside

I must admit it’s

Slightly dim in here

But no mistakes appear

Hide the Stones with Flowers

Hold the world with velvet gloves

Only pleasing things to look at

Don’t supply the clarity

Hide the Stones with Flowers

Hold the world with velvet gloves

Only pleasing things to look at

Don’t show anything unloved

Let’s have a performance!

We’ll show you what we’re really like

But if you wouldn’t mind

Only view it from this side

Thanks for visiting

I’m glad that you could

Come enjoy your stay

You’re welcome back our way

If you do return

I hope that you can

Tell us in advance

So your trip can be planned

Hide the Stones with Flowers

Hold the world with velvet gloves

Only pleasing things to look at

Don’t supply the clarity

Hide the Stones with Flowers

Hold the world with velvet gloves

Only pleasing things to look at

Don’t show anything unloved

Shhh, follow me, this way. Come on out; *ānjìng*, quiet…

## Production

#### Owen Dennis, in response to a query about the guitar part of this song:

"My guitarist lives in Minnesota but I live in Shanghai (thus my Chinese accented singer). Basically the way that the music would work is I would make the general structure of the song, then I would send it to my guitarist with roughly what I wanted the guitar to sound like.

"However, in this song, there originally wasn't any guitar. So what I did was I took some guitar work he did in a different song (First Contact iirc) and then I reworked it to sound completely different. I would adjust the pitch here, change the length of a note there, etc etc until it was a completely different melody from the original. Actually, in each of those guitar riffs in that song, there are probably 3 to 5 actual "plucks" and then they're copied and pasted in different ways so they don't sound the same.

"Then, because the stuff I was using was actually from an electric bass he was playing, I shifted the whole thing upwards. The problem with this is that it distorts the already slightly distorted sound into something computery and terrible, but the humanity is still somewhat there, kind of like Darth Vader.

"After that I would use Garageband and Reason and futz around with various settings and knobs and dials to get the sound effect I wanted. So really, most of what you're hearing are a couple of semi-clean guitar pluckings and myself changing it into something completely different.

"I'm just a perfectionist and I can't have him re-record things every time I think "Oh but it could sound cool if it made more of a twang here" etc. It's very difficult when working in practically opposite timezones.

"He is honestly a very good guitarist however, even though the final product sounds nothing like his original work."

## Trivia

* Owen Dennis, in response to an ask on tumblr, had this to say about the song's inspiration:

> *"Hide the Stones with Flowers was probably the most personal song I wrote. I made it so that the governments from Earth were forcing Emily to only show Galactaron the good things Earth had to offer, so they'd think humans were good. In reality, I was writing about my own experience in China. I felt like I was always being guided around, like anything "bad" was being hidden from me, so that's what the song was based on."*
>
>

* The song may have originally been called "Hide the World With Flowers".

## Navigation

### References

1. ↑ Hide the Stones with Flowers by Galactaron (octopus1138) : radioreddit
2. ↑ Spotify – Galactaron Extras