1983 Holding Out for You

Holding Out for You, written by Mark Fielding Darden in 1983
Recorded in the Choke Monkey Lounge in Raleigh NC

This was pretty much a live recording… a one-take shot with harmony added later. The Boat Rockers ruled...

When I decided to make this video in 2023, I used a program called “Demix” that Dave Gourley turned me on to. It separated the vocals (that were under-mixed in the wav file I had from way back then) and I was able to re-mix that track back into the song to make it sound right. I also deleted a lot of “holding outs” and then rebuilt a fade out (which was not easy) to create the surprise ending. I did not have the “premium” version of Demix or I could have raised the guitar in the lead section as well. But I did my best with that. It’s louder on this recording than it was in the other (original) version.

Another anomaly is that you don’t normally find a “punk” song that has serious love as its theme.
Only in retrospect do I now understand what this song was about. It was almost a “God song”. But ultimately, it was about the drive in my life to find someone to love. The line “I’m alone again” still haunts me because that is my current status and I am about to turn seventy as I write this. I never thought I would enter the last years of my life alone. How sadly ironic.

I added the “letters to my lovers” at the end not as a gag, but as a true compliment to each of them. These seven women changed my life all along the way in significant ways. Each one was a wonderful person whom I’ll never forget.

Fielding Darden: vocals, guitar, song, video
Milton Gore: bass guitar
Mike Haskins: lead guitar.