I've been working on a song for a while with the working title "Forbidden Sin". I ended up writing the entire 11 minute backing track first and then struggling with the lyrics, which I originally had some fantasy theme in mind for.

However, I've done a lot of risque photoshoots lately so I rewrote the song to be about clothing, and how it would be nice if we could dress the way we wanted to, regardless of whether it is considered 'proper' or not. So the 'forbidden sin' ended up being the sin of wearing the wrong kinds of clothes. Thanks to for helping finish the lyrics!

This was sequenced in Sonar, with a few additions and corrections in Rosegarden, and then tracked to an Otari MX-80 24-track machine, with the bass, vocals and other special effects such as reverse drums tracked on the TASCAM TSR-8 first and dubbed onto 2" afterwards. The phasing effect on the chorus was an accident caused by the tape sync not being perfect, but I left it because it sounded great.
The Otari started to behave rather strangely during the main tracking session, which had me worried until I realised that one of the tension sensors had worked loose and got stuck, causing it to feed strange values to the CPU and making the tape creep when it was supposed to be stopped etc.
Mixing was done to the Studer A807 master recorder and a lot of tape editing was needed to get the reverse drums part to work.

In future I'd like to tighten up the tuning on some of the bass parts, especially in the first couple of verses, and I may rerecord the vocals as I'm not particularly struck on how they turned out.

Equipment used included:

Oberheim OB-X8, Waldorf MicroWave mk1, Ahlborn Archive organ module, Dexibell SX8 piano module, Hammond XM1, Alesis DM10, Roland JV1010, Roland MVS-1 and D550, Korg M1R and Triton Rack, Manikin Memotron, Cheetah MS6, Waldorf Streichfett with JH Triple Chorus, Moog Voyager, Apex 460 microphone and Steinberger XT2d bass, Lexicon MX300 effects unit, Vesta Kozo spring reverb, plus Watkins and Echolette echo units.

Lyrics

I find it hard to toe the line, so I wear jeans with too much shine
If I think they'd look good on me, who cares what sex it's meant to be?
It's not your business what I wear, or if I'd like to dye my hair
Long gloves to cover up my skin, high heels to wake the beast within
(Forbidden sin) Forbidden Sin!

If I should buy some shiny socks, or dress up like a human fox
There's no accounting for your taste, restricting fashion's such a waste
There's far more urgent kinds of mess than some guy trying out a dress
Why is it frowned on to get in a tight suit like a second skin?
(Forbidden sin) Forbidden Sin!

What you have done is forbidden! It is sin! It is a forbidden sin!

Suppose I paint my talons black, that shouldn't cause a heart attack
But if I'd rather paint them blue, what has it got to do with you?
Perhaps a catsuit's what I'd like, or racing leathers with no bike
So play your tiny violin, I'll take my new look for a spin
(Forbidden sin!) Forbidden Sin!