Creating Nah

Date Conceived - 16th June 2024

This song was born from different parts of two songs which eventually came together. The lyrics, the beginning of which were written in 2022, came from the song that ended up becoming Down 'n' Dirty, so they got shoved in my "ideas note" to be saved for a later date. I can't quite remember what the music came from. For some reason I had my electric guitar set up in the lounge (I barely ever do that) and the idea must have come to me because I set up my phone to capture an audio note, and there I am, in the lounge. Right where I shouldn't be. That was 2023.

Every so often I go back through the "Music Ideas" folder in my phone's gallery to listen again and see it inspiration stirs to create a song. Listening to that guitar riff I knew exactly how the bass should sound, and how the drums should build until the song kicked in proper, but it took another year before I actually started putting it together. 

Then I needed...lyrics (the horror!) I found the verse from 2022 in my ideas note and realised I could repurpose it. Originally it had been eight shorter lines, sung more slowly. For Nah I joined the first and second, third and fourth etc, and sung them more quicky. That was only the first verse though.

The second verse came slowly, from my usual pattern of writing very general, almost nonsense lyrics, with only a hint of a theme (paranoia, by the looks of it). I just could not nail down a fourth line though. I liked 'Just one solution' and as a placeholder added in 'I’m gonna order me some chicken chow mein'. Are you spotting a theme with me and placeholder lyrics yet?

The first line of the third verse, 'The songs are all written, no more stories left to be told' is a very old idea of mine that's been in my note for ages, probably since the late nineties. At this point the song could still be quite serious, but I didn't know what to write next, so I turned to RhymeZone. As you can see, every line from now on rhymes with 'told'. I basically jotted down every rhyme I thought I could use, but the lines preceding them got sillier and sillier. At this point I took a rest from writing the verses but when I got to the chorus I hit another wall.

Obviously a chorus should be the catchiest part of the song, but I couldn't figure out what to write about. In a moment of frustration I tried screaming 'Nah' repeatedly over the chorus chords and it worked, I quite liked it. Then I tried adding a low harmony and I really liked it. From that point on, the song was silly. I finished the verses off quite quickly, immensely proud of the line 'Dig a hole, put a pigeon in it, and you can say that pigeon's been pigeonholed', though when I recorded it I realised I could make it even sillier by changing the first part to 'Get a pigeon, put a hole in the pigeon...'

The guitar solo sounds great, but that's mostly down to the tone. I'm just twiddling away to the best of my ability and it didn't take me too long to work out what I wanted to play, though I still comped it to get the best version I could. I also added the Hammond organ as that always adds an extra rock vibe. Nah quickly became my favourite solo song so far, and it might still hold the number one spot for me actually. It's simple and thoroughly stupid, but I'm very proud of it.