Creating Alone While Coasting

Date Conceived - 15th April 2025

So now we arrive at the last song of the album, and also the newest song on the album. I actually had quite a list of contenders for this slot. I imagine most songwriters are the same, you have what you're working on, but you might abandon it to pick up something else. Do this again and again, and you have a collection of half-finished tracks. I had one or two I'd been working on, another couple I'd found in the old songbook that were worthy of development (and they still are. No doubt at least one or two of them will crop up on album number two). Did I choose any of those songs to work on? Of course not. Inspiration simply didn't strike. At least, it didn't strike from there.

Instead, I dug through the audio notes on my phone and came across a chord progression I'd filmed myself playing on my Dad's acoustic. It had potential. I made a mental note to revisit it, but kept scrolling. The next one that caught my attention was me playing a heavy overdrive tone on my electric. As I listened, I realised it was exactly the same chord progression as the acoustic one. No wonder I liked it. Maybe I could start this new song more gently and then guild it up to be a rocky number. So that's where I started.

https://youtu.be/iDSmzDvXbbQ

From the audio notes the rhythm was already written, so now I needed some lyrics. I hit the usual problem with actually writing them (obviously), but I hit another, more surprising, problem. I couldn't work out what the melody of the vocal would be. That usually helps, and I just couldn't get it. I just threw out any lyrics, with the idea it'd help me get the tune.

Running and hiding and slipping and sliding

And flying and gliding through the sky of your dreams

I kind of the got the idea it would be a descending melody, but I still couldn't get it. Maybe it would be a harmony vocal?

Yelling and calling and climbing and falling

A thrill that's enthralling, but no-one knows what it means

I think I ended up listening back to the guide guitar I'd now recorded and playing a lead part over the top of it. If my voice can't find the tune, my fingers will. And they did. Now I had that, I could get cracking on the lyric. But those first four lines were now jammed in my head (DAMN YOU, PLACEHOLDER LYRICS!) so they became the first verse.

Despite the absence of sense in the first verse, I had the idea to make the song about humanity's growing reliance on technology and more specifically, AI. Look at me, writing a song with a coherent theme. Not only that, but social commentary too! Okay, except for the line:

Two wrongs don't make a right but three lefts do

That had nothing to do with anything. It's just another line from my ideas file that fit so perfectly I wouldn't have taken it out even if I thought I should have.

A quick aside, my mandolin sucked. I bought it to use in Storm of Crows songs (you'll hear it on Drifting Away) but the strings are too close together for me to play comfortably and it inexplicably came with a right-handed bridge on it, so tuning it was almost impossible. At around the same time I'd sold something on eBay for £60. I can't remember what, but I had the money from that and then strangely, eBay sent an e-mail saying "Well done for making your first sale! (I didn't, my first sale was years and years ago) Here's a voucher for £50. Use it soon!" Wow, seriously? I now had £110 credit on eBay. A £190 mandolin I'd been looking at but restraining myself from suddenly became a lot more attainable, so I attained it. Now I had a new and interesting instrument to play.

Remember that idea I had about this song starting off acoustic and then getting rocky? The new mandolin put paid to that. With a mandolin solo I decided to keep the song acoustic but that worked out alright, the album was still mostly overdrive rock songs, so a third acoustic one would be fine.

 The song was started on the 15th April, and I recorded the last part for it exactly one month later on the 15th May. Exactly three months later the twelve track album on which it would feature was released and now here I am, writing blog posts about each track, delaying the inevitable moment when I run out of things to do and get on with writing and recording more songs. I have no idea when this particular blog post will go out. As I type it, it's the 4th September 2025 and it is the last of the series about each song on the album but so far I've only posted the first one. Hopefully by the time I actually publish this post, I'll be well on my way to album number two.

 I don't even know what blog posts I'll write to follow this one. Maybe I'll document the new songs as I write them so the information is less fuzzy in my brain. Maybe I'll write about guitars, or pedalboards, or how I hate writing lyrics. You couldn't probably stand to read a bit more about that, right? Oh well, only time will tell. For now, thanks for reading.