Creating Timeflies!

Conceived - 28th May 2023

This was one of those night time miracles, when your head hits the pillow and an idea zips through your brain. You know if you go to sleep thinking "I'll try to remember that in the morning" there's no way you will, so I got back up and made a quick note of the lines I suddenly had:

Timeflies! Buzzing, buzzing around

Timeflies! When your sorrow's been drowned

Timeflies! Duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh 

Timeflies! When you're having fun!

I'd had the idea of making a joke around the saying "time flies when you're having fun" years earlier, turning it into a creature responsible for the phenomenon, but suddenly I had most of the chorus pop into my head.

The next day the family was going to Hathersage Outdoor Pool but I'm not much of a swimmer so while my wife and daughters swam, I sat on the side with a coffee and an Oreo ice cream sandwich (screw you, dentists, it's a killer combo). That's where I filmed this video:

I still only had the three lines for the chorus, but after this I sat and wrote most of the lyrics out very quickly. As I've said previously, I'm not one for writing lyrics, but this was a story. I've tried to be a writer for years so this I can do!

A week later I started recording. The first part of the track down was the guide guitar (how I always start recording a song, playing along to a click). The rest of the song slowly followed and I just left the guide guitar in place as this was still at a time I thought Storm of Crows would end up recording it (I did actually get them to record some parts for it). It was a while after the song was "finished" that Storm of Crows seemed to stop and that that point I was already happy with Timeflies! so I left it as is. When exactly did I realise it still had the guide guitar instead of a properly recorded part for the rhythm? As I sat down to write this! The album has been out for two weeks and until today I didn't realise I never went back to re-record the rhythm. Oh well, I was very happy with it, it kind of sounds like a chaotic fly buzzing around.

This was my first real bass challenge. I'm not a natural bass player and this line is very fast with a lot of precision and muting. I ended up comping together the final line from six takes, plus a few "drop in" takes to take out any errors I made on every single take!

The lead guitar was my nemesis on this one. I knew I wanted it to be an "epic" solo with no long pauses, so I started noodling around and eventually got something close to what I wanted. Then I started playing along to the track and it developed further but I realised one part, the second tapping section, was well beyond my ability. I slowed the track down by 30bpm and played over that again and again until I could repeatedly play it. Then I increased the tempo by 10bpm and did the same again, working up to the proper speed. This process literally took me weeks. Now here we are in 2025, I've tried playing along to the solo and I can get it pretty close, but the tapping section is back to a mess. Keep up your practise folks, you won't retain all your skills if you don't!