Dashboard Confessional released Alter the Ending in the United States on November 10, 2009. Their sixth studio album offered two ways into the same songs: electric arrangements on the standard release and a second, acoustic set on the deluxe edition. Lead single “Belle of the Boulevard” appeared in both forms.
That choice followed a period of movement between bigger rock productions and quieter recordings. Dusk and Summer arrived in 2006, followed by the more acoustic The Shade of Poison Trees in 2007. For Alter the Ending, Butch Walker took the producer’s role, with Adam Schlesinger co-producing. Even the standard album retained room for quieter material, with “Even Now” and closing track “Hell on the Throat” keeping an acoustic presence in the sequence. The expanded release let listeners compare how the same writing worked under different arrangements, with every song from the standard album represented on the acoustic disc.
The writing had needed its own breakthrough. Speaking with Jonathan Bautts in a 2010 interview, frontman Chris Carrabba explained that he generally kept writing until a song suggested a direction he hadn’t already explored. He could accumulate 20 or 30 songs while waiting for that moment. He wanted each album to maintain a connection to Dashboard’s beginnings while giving him somewhere different to go. With Alter the Ending, the turning point was “Get Me Right,” which became the opening track. He still thought highly of the songs he’d written before it, but that one gave him the sense that he was entering new territory. He couldn’t identify exactly what made it different; recognizing the shift was enough to begin shaping a record.
The acoustic edition also changed how Carrabba heard his own material. In a contemporary Billboard interview, he explained that the full band still played on those recordings, using a more minimal approach. One song had ended up as his least favorite on the electric album, despite other people’s enthusiasm for it. Reworking it changed his mind. “And the acoustic version has become my favorite song on the record,” he said. He declined to identify the track, leaving listeners to make their own comparisons across the two discs.
In 2019, he re-recorded Alter the Ending as part of the Now Is Then Is Now project, alongside A Mark, a Mission, a Brand, a Scar and Dusk and Summer. This time, he also reconsidered decisions made before the earlier recordings were finished. He told DuJour that finding the original lyrics to “Alter the Ending” reminded him he had been encouraged to remove the title phrase from the song. Reading those words again made him want to revisit his original version. “I wanted a chance to express myself with my original intention,” he said.
The work involved returning to personal memories as well as changing the recordings. Carrabba initially kept the project to himself because he wasn’t sure he could see it through emotionally. The new Alter the Ending recordings were released on June 21, 2019.
