Spontaneity Strikes!

So I was adding some technical touches to Subterranean late yesterday and whilst in the process of procrastinating with the guitar I happened upon a nice little chord progression. Nothing outstanding there I hear you say (or am I hearing voices again?) but I also simultaneously thought of an accompanying vocal melody. This is a rare thing for me, as when writing I almost always think of the chords first and then spend the next few weeks/months/year trying to get the right vocal melody. Not so this time. So, without a second to spare I quickly set up the ol' Mac and recorded the guitar together with the tune what was in my 'ed. It's just a 2 minute demo so far (gimmeabreakwillya, I only thought of it yesterday) but I can hear a lot of potential and kind of know where it should be taken. It's most likely to be the closing song of the album, if I can get that 12-piece choir that is (I am semi-joking...see, only one side of my face is smiling and I haven't had a stroke or nuffink).

I'm enjoying the fact that my creative juices seem to be splurging all over the shop lately. You best mind your step....

The song is most likely to be definitely called maybe possibly "Nothing is Lost."  It starts off a bit melancholic (is that depression for babies?  "ooh little Tommy's very down about his windy pops lately, he hasn't even touched his milk today, he's really not himself") and the aim is to lift the whole song up in the 2nd half with rousing strings and a euphoric chorus.  We'll see whether it get's there.
Peace out.

There's nothing to show for the light inside.

I'm quite excited. I've just finished polishing vocals for the title track and I feel like it's the best song I've written for a while. Your confidence in your own ability can get knocked around a bit sometimes, particularly when going through a creatively arid spell. This one is coming together quite nicely though and I'm juiced up with some other song ideas too. Good stuff. I think Subterranean (the song) has the best bridge I've written. I normally struggle with the middle 8 part of a song so this is quite some progress. The structure of the song starts out quite delicately but morphs into a kind of verve-esque outro. No bad thing I say (well, I would say that).
If I were to sum up the theme of the song in one word I would have to say "introverts." Luckily I don't have to, so will probably post again soon with a clip from the song with the lyrics. The song contains the line "comes alive in the sound" from which the more astute of you will recognise as this blog address. Fascinating trivia!

Lights Out

The first song I wrote for the album.

Into the Night

Into the Night I need to re-record to give some more headroom. I didn't realise at the time that I was seriously peaking on the vocals by having the interface input up way too high. Oh well, it's been a MASSIVE learning curve so far. I will post soon with nerdy details and photos of my set up. To give a brief summary though, I'm doing all this on a Mac using Logic 9. Logic is the way forward my friends, you know it....

This was originally going to be the album title but seemed a bit too generic, but the title fit this song perfectly. A song about escape. Aren't they all?

Here's a clip (the "too little headroom version") -

And in your arms, is the safest place to be...

The Safest Place to Be is the one tune on Subterranean that has caused the most frustration, disillusionment, general dissatisfaction thus far in my writing/recording process. It's never sounded quite right. There's a chorus there, there's a verse there but there's never been a song quite there. I've considered scrapping it entirely but I'm told it is worth keeping, so therefore I keep trying. I need to get round to writing a new bridge, but other songs keep coming up and I easily procrastinate.

The lyrics are the most complete, cohesive part of the sum and they motivate my continual efforts of delivering a chord or two worthy of them. The message is, in a general sense, about putting way too much faith in one man/person. They were written around the time of the US elections and are a comment on the hype of those times. Not that there is a particularly political point being made, just that there are really only a few things in this world we can/should entrust our complete confidence in, and it's usually not wise for it to be a governmental representative, whoever they may be.

Here's the words:

In the garden we will walk

circling trees to distract from the thought

In this honesty undone,

holding anything back for too long

Wait & see where this one goes

No where new and no where soon

And in your arms is the safest place to be

And in your arms I keep the closest thing to me

Won't hold on to this much more

the sunlight breaking like boots through the door

Hope in anyone so hard

There comes a truth that will burn up the heart

Wait & see when this one starts

No where soon and no where fast

And in your arms is the safest place to be

And in your arms I keep the closest thing to me

Comes alive, carried along in sound

This blog is now created. It's time to get creative. More soon.