Bob, Ron, Andrew, Bob, Mario, David, Dave and Marty:

Thanks for the listens and a the comments so far. You've all given us a LOT to think about. Ray and I will have to put our heads together and figure out next steps, but here are some of my initial thoughts on your feedback:

Intro: I'm pretty satisfied with the length right now. This is a short, poppy song in my mind and the intro gets right to it. Of course, it's all subjective and the guitar is compelling, so I can understand wanting to hear more. Worth a try, if nothing more than to confirm shorter is better.

Vocal Level: From my side, I didn't want the vocal too far out in front at risk of overwhelming the mix . . . so tried to find that fine line between present but not buried. I thought it was pretty close in this version.

Compressed Mix: So I can't speak for ray on the music tracks side, but on the lead vocal, where I normally use a pre-set "Warm Vocal" on my EQ, I did use a "Compressed" EQ pre-set here. Largely because it otherwise sounded too high-end and tinny, and not the right fit for the other tracks. So there may be something to the comments here. Definitely worth a closer look on ray's and my ends.

The Ending: I think this likely falls more on me than ray, as the "yeah, yeahs" to the closing harmony was my suggestion. We could have faded out on the harmonies, but I liked ray's chord's kicking back in at the end, which to me fits the "poppy" element of the tune. In the last version, ray added the delay stacatto fade out, which I do like. Extending it out a bit, per Ron's suggestion, might be worth a try. More for us to experiment with.

Thanks again so much for the thoughtful comments. They are all very helpful!!!

Best regards to you all:

Deej