“Chef Eats Last” (Single) — Official Liner Notes
This single was served on 05/17/26. Cover art links to all platforms. For best-quality playback, listen in over-ear headphones on Subvert.fm.
These notes intend to take the reader on a tour of the track’s preparation, lyrics, lists, reflections, and other peripheral context. Discussion is welcome in the comments.
• Previous Liner Notes…Here
• Hyperlink Turnpike…Here
Menu:
• Background
• Production
• Ingredients
• Lyrics
• Cover Art
• Digest
• Credits
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I’m not sure precisely when songwriting “began,” but the earliest memo demo I have on my phone is from about a month ago on April 23rd (not the same one included in the official release). Recording started on May 6th when for two weeks, I deliberately gave myself up to the flow of home production. To prep and not have to worry about dinner around sessions, I actually cooked myself a hardy batch of pasta fagioli, which I’m still chowing down on at the time of this writing…
One pattern I’ve noticed—and noted—from observing my own process over time, is that a majority of my songs tend to develop inductively, meaning they instinctively arise “bottom-up” out of a potpourri of ideas, scratch tracks, and emotions, as opposed to a deductive top-down approach, which spawns more from a singular concept and then trickles down into the production. Obviously, there is no rule that it must go either way, but this track took the former approach, as songwriting colored itself in even as everything else was coming together.
*There are three versions included in the release: 1) the main course, 2) an abridged radio edit, and 3) a stripped-down acoustic demo. There are minor differences between each of them which serve different purposes. All three are on Soundcloud, Subvert, and Bandcamp. Only the first two are on streaming.
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Recycling the idea from a previous single, “hapless romantics,” I once again made use of the natural acoustic padding of my bedroom to record the guitar and vocal takes before bouncing to The Foyer for the rest. Using a free cloud drive (mega.io) makes it much smoother to work in a DAW wirelessly between laptop and desktop.
After hearing it back a few times, I had a hunch that laying down a sort of clickity-clack track might help emphasize the hustle and hasty pace of the allegro section. That wound up as me using a pair of drumsticks to beat out a rhythm vivaciously on a nearby windowsill. I had to put a pillow down because it was getting intense and some old paint was chipping and scattering dust over my pedalboard, but it was worth it in the end. In hindsight, I like how the sticks seasoned the mix, and how it subconsciously ties into the lyrics in the second stanza.
“Not my tempo!”
Whilst on the hunt for a synth part to add to the same section, I found a stowed-away stylophone, which I rigged up to tap out some extra electronic melodies. I know the video looks like I’m whoopin’ the webcam in the face, but honestly, that’s what happens after ~30min of restarts and unsatisfactory attempts.
^When you finally see what’s holding up the line at the grocery store.
Acoustic guitar and vocals are the basic bones of the broth. The whole song was written with those two instruments (as heard in the demo version) and then augmented with other fun flavors. Certain instruments in the arrangement hold some subtle special meaning, such as the hoofer’s shoe knocking on the sill mentioned earlier, while others serve to spice up the sonics, like the trumpet during the exciting part. Only the sharpest ears, however, will catch the sliced-up choppin’ samples that are blended into the beat near the end…
• Instruments used: acoustic guitar, bass guitar, stylophone, vocals, snare drum (live kit), Synth1 VST, electric guitar (and slide), EBow, trumpet, egg shaker, kick drum/hi-hat samples, YPG-235 (Trombone, Clavi, and Shakuhachi: MIDI voice #297, #150, & #327), tambourine, various ambient samples, neighborhood chimes.
• Designated plugins: Airwindows Consolidated, BPB Saturator, OCS-45, Pancz.
• Production: Mixed and recorded in FL25, mastered with Ozone 12 Standard.
*What follows are the official lyrics for the main course. If you’re interested in the alterations on the radio edit and demo version of the song, feel free to compare using the lyrics tab on the Subvert page.
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Rainbow tiny horseshoe
Stable in the dew
Stoners lose their chill, while
Summers keep their cool
Hoofer on the rooftop’s
Shoe drops on the sill
Baby you would
Shimmy down
Simmer down
Huyah!
Bite size brittle talk
Funny how we’re on about this
Tracing back the past to pitch a
Modern monkey catachresis
Dark light
Ah ah ah
Yippee yippee ki yay
Yippee yippee coyote
That old sugar moon1
Measured by the spoon
This time calls for courtesy
Certainly
Mild déjà vu
Badadada
Bum balloo
Budadada
Bum balloo
Cretons at the table
The egg is on your face
Paupers cough up pepper
And no one thought to clear their place
You know I would
Rather not waste my style
Though I could
Sip it from a can of box soda
The butcher’s out to luncheon
The baker’s breaking fast
The waiter’s been done waiting
And burner’s on cause chef eats last, he said
Ooo
My wishes to the worried well
Ooo
Dish the dirt and dry the spell
Well if you’re not a stranger
Then maybe you’re not my friend
If your manners mirror danger
Then boy you’d better look again
For the good
Of all that we understood
Of where we don’t belong
To pander to the ever after
I arranged the cover art by tiling out black peppercorn on a cutting board next to a butcher’s knife, staging the shot, and then bringing it into Paint.NET for editing. Thankfully, I’m not allergic and never achoo’d, though nibbling on one or two kernels did give me the proper kick to stay diligent while dotting the board.
careful not to bump the bits, bro!
• First photograph and final cover with edits:
• Looping animation:
While I do get a bang out of sprinkling in food puns here and there throughout these notes and around the release, the song itself, or rather, its essence, is left stewing in the mind of the musician as a bundle of sincere thoughts, feelings, and reflections. That is to say, this song is much more than the sum of its parts; in the gestalt, it boils down to something cohesive and sentimentally-redolent—beyond what can be articulated in words—if only to exist as the reduction of a fluid momentary range of emotions, sprawled over an earnest reaction to there being some truth to convey. It’s like the process is play, and the processing of that play is what will be consumed. So, is the track about…cooking? Is it about…democracy? Or, perhaps, is it that hunger that drives all humans to creation? And how much, I wonder, must we put ahead of ourselves before we ourselves get to eat…or after we’ve already starved?
“Chef Eats Last” was written, recorded, mixed, and mastered in 2026 at home in Milwaukee by Alex Sitze.
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Amazing process! Did the chopped celery that went into the song go into the pasta figiole that you’re eating? Thanks for the delicious meal!
Indeed!