Singled Out: The Messenger Birds' FAKE LIVES

05-14-2025

The Messenger Birds are previewing their forthcoming "GRAMMY AWARD WINNING ALBUM IT'S ALL A BLUR" EP with the single "FAKE LIVES", and to celebrate we asked guitarist/vocalist Parker Bengry to tell us about the song. Here is the story:

When I start writing lyrics, I usually hear it or feel it in a certain meter in my head. I also tend to think in folk song by default. I remember the first lines I wrote for what became "FAKE LIVES" were in kind of a triplet, ¾ rhythm over what I imagined to be a soft acoustic guitar - "Saccharine sad sack state of mind / I take on too much every time / What's mine is yours, what's yours ain't mine..." - that stanza, and a couple other placeholder lines, sat untouched for a while and just lived in my memory as a sad, unfinished indie-folk song, until it wasn't.

Everything changed when I bought a Moog Sub37 and started toying around with it in my basement. I think most artists would tell you that getting a new tool and figuring out how to use it is always a massive source of inspiration. Every time I've ever gotten a new guitar pedal or some other piece of gear, a song has come out of it. There's always a big learning curve, and the natural curiosity that comes with experimenting and exploring breeds a very pure form of creation.

I was messing with the Moog's arpeggiator, just sort of holding a key and twisting knobs, first in isolation and then in combination, to see how each tweak shaped the sound. Eventually, it turned into this really thick, sinister, pulsing note. That was the catalyst for everything that came after.

I had a song that felt like it was about to write itself, and that's always the best kind. I could hear the drums. I could hear the verse. I could hear the chorus. So, I went straight into Garageband, which is how I demo everything to keep it simple, and started recording the ideas while they were fresh. It probably took me just two or three hours to shape the song into its full structure - basic, but complete - with synth, midi drums, and guitars. Then I shifted gears to thinking about vocals and started perusing the Notes app on my phone to see if any of my working lyric ideas seemed to fit, and I rediscovered the skeleton of that sad folk song I started but never finished. Something about it stuck out to me, and even though the meter and vibe were completely different than originally intended, it felt like it belonged.

What started as a sad song about giving away too much of yourself to try to be perfect for everyone all the time turned into something more. This was meaner, more pissed off, more anthemic. It hadn't lost its original identity, it just evolved into what I think it was always meant to be: a song about how nobody is really who they present themselves to be. We've created a world that's slowly killing us - physically, emotionally, and socially. Most of us curate perfect, narcissistic versions of ourselves for others to praise or condemn. Social media has only made things worse. It's created far less human connection, and the algorithms that drive it thrive on controversy and reinforce bias. I think that's also led to the oversimplification of most problems and solutions in modern society. People see things in binary. It's all just black or white, right or wrong, good or evil, etc. I'm not exactly sure how to fix that. But maybe the answer isn't more "connection" - but better, real ones.

Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen and watch for yourself below and learn more here