"If I Mean When" Guitar Tutorial

Here's a video of me (Dan) explaining to you how to play the acoustic guitar part for our song "If I Mean When". As part of our new Tier 2 on Patreon, we'll be posting Tea Club Song Tutorials, where we'll teach you how to play our songs and show you just what goes into making them what they are. (This first video will be available to the public, but all of the rest will be available for Tier 2 Patrons ONLY, starting tomorrow with an acoustic guitar tutorial for our song "Tumbleweeds" from our 2nd album Rabbit.)

This song was written back in 2016 or 2017, and the lyrics feel like they get more and more relevant every day. When I wrote it, I was imagining myself in some kind of bleak dystopian future where everything seems hopeless and the only thing we have to live for is the fight for survival. It can be easy to feel that way today. I believe it’s good to express those feelings, instead of wishing that they weren’t there or thinking that they shouldn’t be there. Maybe this song can be a song that you listen to when you’re feeling the weight of the world, and you just need someone on your side saying, “yeah, this is all messed up.”

But I do want to say this... listening to our album If/When as a whole, my intention for this song was always for it to be a sort of companion to the last song on the album, “Creature”, which has lyrics full of hope and redemption. I wanted the album to express that there is more than just the darkness. The despair is only part of the picture.

Love ya’s :)

I'm just being realistic, I'm not hoping for a cure
Soon there'll be no time to laugh away our sorrows anymore
There'll be nothing else to live for if we're fighting to survive
I say if, I mean when

I say if, I mean when
I say if, I mean when
I say if, I mean when

There's a buzzing up above me and I don't think it's a bee
I'd like to know what it is there for but then again it's only me
Someone says they fucked up good this time and left behind a clue
But it's recently outdated, then again, what else is new?

I say if, I mean when
I say if, I mean when
I say if, I mean when

And I swear we clung to every word, believing it was true
But it's recently outdated, then again now so are you
So are you, you

I say if, I mean when