You Never Know Where A Song Will Take You . . .
Hello everyone, I have been extremely busy and hadn't taken the time to blog this week.
I'm glad to see Jimmy did. That Sanford thing is hilarious! I loved that show when I was a kid!
Now for where I've been -
Sometimes you know right where you are going with a song from the time you write it, through to completion and sometimes you don't. Other times you only think you do and it will change along the way. In the case of our song "There's Only Tonight" I really couldn't envision where it should go when it came time to record it. . .
Several years back my wife was diagnosed with cancer (She's perfectly fine now) and at the time it was pretty scary to say the least. I remember having all of these thoughts and emotions running through me sitting there on my sofa contemplating everything and picking up the acoustic guitar that was sitting there. Out came the first verse of this song, the vocal melody and this bluesy guitar part.
Then that's it. I put the guitar down and went to face life.
After that night I completely forgot about that song and the first verse I wrote, In fact I forgot about it for several years. Once I began to write again, one day it just popped back into my head after all that time. Only when it did, I never bothered with figuring out what I originally did on guitar. I took the lyric and melody straight to the piano and wrote the music to the song anew. Once Jimmy and I started working together it was one of the first ones I brought to the table. I was stuck and just couldn't get past that first verse. After all, I was in a completely different place in life than when I first came up with it.
Of course I became unstuck pretty fast as Jimmy and I finished the song together and made it what it is today. We took the song to an entirely different place, but that first verse sometimes takes me back to another time and place. It makes me very thankful that things turned out the way they did.
The first verse is the exact same as what I originally had except for the last line and then it goes off on it's own journey based on what we discussed and where we were each drawing from our own personal experiences of the end topic.
There's one line in that first verse that is the transition point from the original topic of the song that ultimately led perfectly to where it eventually ended up. - "If you're ever really leaving darlin', don't tell me it's goodbye" . . . Of course in the original I was talking about the possibility of her leaving life, not breaking up with me. It's strange how a song will come along and where it will end up. You just never know.
When we finished writing the song I thought it was good, but for some reason it was my least favorite. I remember mentioning that to Jimmy and him saying back to me not to count it out, that I'd be surprised what that song might become. Well, he was certainly right . . .
When I was recording all the Piano and doing the string arrangements on everything this of course was one of 'em I put down. Since I had no idea where we would go with this one, I played the piano with as much feeling as possible in case it didn't get much farther than a stand alone Piano song. I played to a click and it was in time, but had a very loose feel.
This last week while working on various things I started to experiment on this one and I came up with some ideas on guitar that really made the song come alive. The parts took the song completely somewhere I never imagined it going, but it was really cool. I sent Jimmy a quick reference of what I was thinking just to make sure I wasn't losing my mind and he thought the idea was perfect.
So I set out to make it all work and after several days it still wasn't working. Sometimes when this happens it can be hard to find the culprit. I knew it was a timing issue, so I started isolating each and every track and carefully listening to it with the click. Alone with the click each part seemed fine, but when you put them all together - to say it all fell apart would be an understatement. lol
I eventually figured it all out. It came down to feel and very minor timing differences between the intricacies of the various parts. To fix it required a revamping of some of the piano parts. Some were fine, some just needed a feel change here and there and a couple parts needed complete re-writing to make it all work with what I came up with on guitar.
Now that I got everything worked out - I have to re record all the piano on the song, tighten up some other things and then finish the guitars. After that Jimmy will put his stamp on it. He's also got the solo in this one and lead vocal duties on it.
It's gonna be really great. I gotta tell ya - It went from my least favorite to one of my absolute favorites just like that. It just goes to show that magic can happen at any point in the process and it can keep happening all the way through . . .
Tomorrow the work continues for me. I know Jimmy mentioned things stopping for two weeks for the whole project. I'll be working through the 28th, and then I'll be stopping for two weeks due to family plans. By the time I come back to it Jimmy should be back too.
Then it's full on from there . . .
-Bret.
Hello everyone, I have been extremely busy and hadn't taken the time to blog this week.
I'm glad to see Jimmy did. That Sanford thing is hilarious! I loved that show when I was a kid!
Now for where I've been -
Sometimes you know right where you are going with a song from the time you write it, through to completion and sometimes you don't. Other times you only think you do and it will change along the way. In the case of our song "There's Only Tonight" I really couldn't envision where it should go when it came time to record it. . .
Several years back my wife was diagnosed with cancer (She's perfectly fine now) and at the time it was pretty scary to say the least. I remember having all of these thoughts and emotions running through me sitting there on my sofa contemplating everything and picking up the acoustic guitar that was sitting there. Out came the first verse of this song, the vocal melody and this bluesy guitar part.
Then that's it. I put the guitar down and went to face life.
After that night I completely forgot about that song and the first verse I wrote, In fact I forgot about it for several years. Once I began to write again, one day it just popped back into my head after all that time. Only when it did, I never bothered with figuring out what I originally did on guitar. I took the lyric and melody straight to the piano and wrote the music to the song anew. Once Jimmy and I started working together it was one of the first ones I brought to the table. I was stuck and just couldn't get past that first verse. After all, I was in a completely different place in life than when I first came up with it.
Of course I became unstuck pretty fast as Jimmy and I finished the song together and made it what it is today. We took the song to an entirely different place, but that first verse sometimes takes me back to another time and place. It makes me very thankful that things turned out the way they did.
The first verse is the exact same as what I originally had except for the last line and then it goes off on it's own journey based on what we discussed and where we were each drawing from our own personal experiences of the end topic.
There's one line in that first verse that is the transition point from the original topic of the song that ultimately led perfectly to where it eventually ended up. - "If you're ever really leaving darlin', don't tell me it's goodbye" . . . Of course in the original I was talking about the possibility of her leaving life, not breaking up with me. It's strange how a song will come along and where it will end up. You just never know.
When we finished writing the song I thought it was good, but for some reason it was my least favorite. I remember mentioning that to Jimmy and him saying back to me not to count it out, that I'd be surprised what that song might become. Well, he was certainly right . . .
When I was recording all the Piano and doing the string arrangements on everything this of course was one of 'em I put down. Since I had no idea where we would go with this one, I played the piano with as much feeling as possible in case it didn't get much farther than a stand alone Piano song. I played to a click and it was in time, but had a very loose feel.
This last week while working on various things I started to experiment on this one and I came up with some ideas on guitar that really made the song come alive. The parts took the song completely somewhere I never imagined it going, but it was really cool. I sent Jimmy a quick reference of what I was thinking just to make sure I wasn't losing my mind and he thought the idea was perfect.
So I set out to make it all work and after several days it still wasn't working. Sometimes when this happens it can be hard to find the culprit. I knew it was a timing issue, so I started isolating each and every track and carefully listening to it with the click. Alone with the click each part seemed fine, but when you put them all together - to say it all fell apart would be an understatement. lol
I eventually figured it all out. It came down to feel and very minor timing differences between the intricacies of the various parts. To fix it required a revamping of some of the piano parts. Some were fine, some just needed a feel change here and there and a couple parts needed complete re-writing to make it all work with what I came up with on guitar.
Now that I got everything worked out - I have to re record all the piano on the song, tighten up some other things and then finish the guitars. After that Jimmy will put his stamp on it. He's also got the solo in this one and lead vocal duties on it.
It's gonna be really great. I gotta tell ya - It went from my least favorite to one of my absolute favorites just like that. It just goes to show that magic can happen at any point in the process and it can keep happening all the way through . . .
Tomorrow the work continues for me. I know Jimmy mentioned things stopping for two weeks for the whole project. I'll be working through the 28th, and then I'll be stopping for two weeks due to family plans. By the time I come back to it Jimmy should be back too.
Then it's full on from there . . .
-Bret.
Comments
Post a Comment