When I Was With You is a brilliant ballad, in a melancholic way. A great arrangement, maybe spoilt by my lead vocal. Maybe also marred by the lack of a middle eight mind, as well as my lead vocal possibly. It is one of those songs that I would love to hear covered. I know that that is very unlikely.
This song completed changed the way that I record. In production terms it is similar to that on Colours. Here John Sampson was the engineer for the session and just suggested seeing what we can do with one song to get a full produced sound, and maybe something else if there was time (there wasn't).
He asked me to play through some songs that I had got in my folder that day, and the first one I think was The Innocent Dead, which he said was very similar to Slave Song style-wise. The second song was this. While I was playing he and Andy Wright were working out the tempo and started programming drum patterns, using samples of Mark Allsop's drum kit. Obviously this was going to be the song that we would work on. They programmed a decent rhythm to keep time by, which we later worked on to get fills, slight alterations, and all that sort of stuff in so that it didn't sound the same all the way through the song.
After that I put down and acoustic guitar strummed rhythm track. This was then followed by me programming some cello on Reason with John, and then Andy put down the lead acoustic guitar licks and arpeggios. I then put down a lead vocal.
I contacted Mike Borlace to ask him to come in and play some electric guitar. I'd not seen him since I'd left church, but I had heard that he was playing the guitar, after I'd apparently been an inspirational bass tutor. He agreed and played a great solo, that was arrived at on the third take.
After my backing harmonies were added, the fixing of the drums, and John's bass playing, we mixed the song. Started and finished in one day. A great song.
Now, musically it is very basic I'll admit, but that is never to the detriment of a song. I don't think that a song is bad just because of the fact that it has three relatively simple chords... Well, four technically, but that's being a smart arse about it. It uses G, C, D, and C major 9 (It's a very well used chord structure I know). But that is, like I said, being a smart arse. I think the fact that it was worked on quickly, and that everyone involved liked the song adds to it greatly, because the playing on the song shines through. The vocals are not the best in the world, and I would never claim that my voice is, but everything in the song brings out the emotion of the piece, which is basically someone reminiscing and thinking about a lost love, wondering how they are, what could have been, and that sort of thing.
It's funny how sometimes an idea can just come from nowhere, and this was one of those. The basic song was written in less than half an hour I think, with some alterations made. The fact that I fluff one of the choruses at the end just seems to add to the song, much like McCartney fluffing a line in Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Di by singing "Desmond stays at home and does his pretty face", instead of singing "Molly stays at home and does her pretty face". I was bothered about it, but John and Andy said they thought it was fine how it came out. Much like the audible emotion in Wreath For The Suicide Heart on Colours, it adds to the emotion of the song, or so I have been told anyway.
Thank you for reading, please take care.
26 June 2011 (40 years and 7 months old).
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