Liner notes · riot-grrrl · production · vocals
Inside "Believe Them the First Time": A Slightly Sharper Second Take
The second take of "Believe Them the First Time" pushes the tempo up and tightens the vocal phrasing on an already unrelenting song.
In short
- Riot grrrl's raw, distorted, defiant sound is used here without any softening, matching the song's refusal to treat the subject gently.
- This take runs at a slightly faster tempo than the first, with a marginally sharper vocal edge.
- Layered group vocals on the chorus turn a single voice's demand into something that reads as a shared one.
Riot grrrl built its sound on refusal to soften anything: raw distorted guitars, driving simple drums, and a lead vocal that's shouted as much as it's sung. "Believe Them the First Time" doesn't try to make its subject more comfortable to listen to, and that's the entire point of choosing this genre for it.
What this take does differently
This take runs at a slightly faster tempo than the first and carries a marginally sharper edge in the vocal delivery, giving the whole track a bit more urgency without changing a single word. It's a subtle difference rather than a dramatic one -- the kind of variation that comes from a different live-feeling performance of the same song rather than a different arrangement.
Believe them the first timeBelieve them, don't make them climb
The layered group vocals on the chorus and bridge are doing important work here: a single voice demanding to be believed can read as a personal plea, but a chorus of voices saying it together reads as a shared standard. That layering is what keeps the song from sounding like one complaint and makes it sound like a position a whole room is willing to hold.
The lo-fi, urgent production keeps the vocal right up front in the mix, with almost nothing between the listener and the words. For a genre built to sound defiant rather than polished, that closeness is the whole strategy -- there's no reverb or studio gloss standing between the demand and the person hearing it.
Both takes keep the drums simple and driving rather than technical, which is deliberate: riot grrrl was never about instrumental complexity, it was about a message that couldn't be ignored. This take's small tempo increase pushes that urgency just slightly further without changing anything about what the song is actually saying.
