Now that I’ve given away my music for the RPM Challenge to friends and many people have had time to hear it and react, I wanted a chance to explain some of the creative process that went into making each track.  This post will be the second of several which will go into some detail on my thoughts during the songwriting process.

Track Three – Underground

So far, this song has gotten me the most feedback.  People really seem to love it.  If I had a “hit”, this would probably be it.  Which I really appreciate.  I really like it too.  The songs at the front of the album are there for a reason.  I thought they were the most palatable for the most people.  I won’t say that I like them best, but I will say that I thought they’re probably the easiest to like.

I don’t remember much about coming up with the guitar riff, except that it makes my guitar sound so sweet to be capoed up high on the neck.  The little riff is easy and fun to play.  I like the way some of the strings will pretty much ring out the whole time, like they were open.

For the lyrics, they pretty much came to me wholesale in the time that it took my friend to call me from work at around 11:30 and drive over to my house.   Other lyrics took hours.  Once I got the idea for changing up who the narrator is telling and what’ll get away, it all came out in a few minutes.  I think very different stories are evoked by simply changing the pronoun.  If it’s a “he”, the narrator has been holding back telling him something very different than it would be if it was a “she” or a “them”.  Which I find very interesting.  Every combination puts a different story in my head.

The chorus word “underground” was the hardest thing to find.  I’m looking at my pencilled lyrics draft as I type this and other options were “well-endowed”, “anyhow”, “brown cow”, “drown”, “tumbledown”, “upside down”, “life unfound”, and “still unfound”.  Obviously working towards that long O.  I think I found the right one!

There aren’t really any drums to speak of.  Just a shaker, the ping-ping sound, and a tambourine.  I was worried at first that the ping-ping back there in the mix was too annoying, but the longer I listen to it, the more I like it.  I’m not sure any other drums would really add anything extra to this track, although I think it really could be voiced in a whole lot of ways.  I’m sure I could be talked into anything.

Track Four – Heartbreak Prediction

It’s mostly a three chord song (G-C-D), with a complexicated little break in the middle.  I don’t think the break ought to fit with the rest of the song, but I think it does a fairly good job.  It’s so tight and tense compared to the open-ness of the normal progression.

The words were so much fun.  I had no idea what the song would be about until I was completely finished with the first verse.  And I figured out it could be about the duplicitous nature of romance.  Yeah, she’s cute as a button, but she’ll rip your heart clean in two.

“Calculus in a/her little skirt” is so much fun to sing.  Along with “So clean cut, but dangerous, with just a little blush.”  Plus, it’s really fun to sing any song that uses the word “baby” so much.  Note that the word “baby” during the harmony is sung down instead of up, so it doesn’t intertwine too much with the other musical part.

The flip side lyrics are also a blast.  I love the idea of a “heartbreak prediction” and the phrase just works for me.  I also liked doubling the “wrestlin’ thunder, and lightning and thunder”.  Last, both images of her either “charmin’ me under” or “winnin’ me under” were good for me.  I went back and forth so many times in the writing process, I found a way to leave them both in there.

I hate it that I can’t actually play it live by myself!  I obviously can’t background sing for myself….  So I can’t really practice it and make it sound the way I want.  I need a collaborator for some background singing and playing help!

Now that I’ve given away my music for the RPM Challenge to friends and many people have had time to hear it and react, I wanted a chance to explain some of the creative process that went into making each track.  This post will be the first of several which will go into some detail on my thoughts during the songwriting process.

To keep me motivated during the process, I kept reinforcing that I couldn’t really name more than 3-4 songs off of U2’s Joshua Tree – one of the greatest albums of all time.  Or any other truly great album.  So, I figured, as long as people liked maybe 3-4 of my songs (and didn’t hit the ’skip’ button on every track), it’d be okay.  That, and maybe a hope that no one laughed out loud at me for doing it.

Track One – Fairy Godawful:

I don’t think I intended to channel Nirvana, at least until I got to the screaming part, but my older brother said, “Whoever this guy is, he *really* likes the old Nirvana unplugged stuff!”  Which, I guess, I have to take as a compliment.  I like this song a lot.  The guys tend to like it.  Girls, not so much maybe.

I normally have pretty good endurance, but this chord progression makes my hand seriously hurt to play.  I’m honestly never sure I can play it all the way through without cramping up enough to hinder the performance.  It’s all tight barre chords.  But I was kind of proud, somehow, that it uses every major chord between A-flat through B major and then D-flat through E major.  Which I’d think would sound “crunchier” than it does.  Instead, I think it makes for a pretty good pop progression.  The rhythm of this one is also difficult to strum along with the vocals.  I’ll need to practice.

The term “Fairy Godawful” occurred to me as if out of the blue, and I loved it and ran with it.  It’s almost like saying something is “fairy godawful” – a bad thing – and almost like the term “fairy godmother” – a good thing.  But it evokes something completely different – maybe somewhere in the middle.  I’ve had a few friends, maybe, that are a little like this.  People I like a lot, but who might not could take the full light of day in mixed, muggle company.

I like the lyrical shift that goes from him being “sweet and shy” in the first verse to the narrator maybe admitting that he’s “not so shy” later in the song.  When I sing, “He’s not a lady,” I worry that it sounds like, “He’s no lady.”  Which really might be okay.  I like the transitions, too, between, “He’s not a drag,” and “He’s not in drag,”  and then between “He feels so high,” and “His heels so high.”  These shifts, I think, paint a different picture both of the person being described and the person doing the describing.  I like this shifty kind of vocals, where you’re not entirely sure what a singer is saying and can make it up yourself – Rorschach style – on the fly.

Track Two – Probably Orange

The initial riff to this one is fun to play, but fairly basic.  I think I’m imagineering it to eventually be done by a bass guitar, if I had a full band.  But I don’t.  So it works out okay as it is.  It’s a little hard to sing and play this at the same time, but I’ve been practicing.  The first two songs on the album are, I think, the hardest two to play.

As long as ONE person commented on the Ray Kinsella/PacMan Jones/Astrodome trifecta of sports references, I was going to be happy.  And at least one person has.  Now, I am happy.  I think all of them are sports “dreamers”.  I started off with the phrase “Bentley Clerihew” which came right out of my rhyming dictionary.  I remember playing around with it for a long while in the first chorus.  This was, of course, after I’d written the first verse, but before I really knew what the song was about.  When I changed Bentley Clerihew to Ray Kinsella, everything fell into line.  PacMan Jones is just so much fun to say – it had to stay.  Along with me, now: PacMan Jones, PacMan Jones, PacMan Jones.

The outro just came around while I was tinkering with the guitar at some point in the recording process.  If I had originally voiced the chords like that, it might have become a whole different song.  Much sweeter.