Song of the Week #6 - "Ragmuffin Voodoo"

"Ragamuffin Voodoo" (3:47) is song #6 from "Virtual Light", a quick, energetic, and a fun song to play!

The song kicks off with a vocal riff (me) followed immediately by a second vocal (Blue) singing a haunting opposing line. This second vocal, if it sounds familiar, is a direct reference to the title track, "Virtual Light". The guitar comes in and doubles vocal, then adds some cool percussive effects.

The verses feature some fun vocal harmonies and the chorus sneaks in some wicked & challenging guitar licks scattered about the main riff.

One really fun tid-bit is the guitar referencing the vocal:

"Draw your line in the sand
Strange design, stranger hand
Drop the 5 and raise the 4..."

After which the guitar plays a standard blues lick that features the tri-tone - the lick slides up 1/2 step from the 4th scale degree to the sharp 4 (or flat 5). "Diabolus in Musica" is Latin for "the devil in music" or simply "devil music", which I thought was a witty tie-in to both our general blues style (blues used to be known as devil music) and to the song title "Ragamuffin Voodoo".

The bridge is a common theme in many of the songs on "Virtual Light", starting with last week's entry, "That You're Gone", only this time the context is completely different. The context in "Gone" is the relative minor to the songs key of E major, while in "Voodoo" it comes as a clear modulation away from the Em (G) context, but the final B chord is the dom5, leading back to Em (as the dom7 chord allows a return to either a major or minor tonality).

Here it is: http://www.skinnydevil.com/Ragamuffin Voodoo.mp3