Song writing to order

Hello everybody.  I am hopeful that you are all okay.  I actually do have some things to talk about, which makes a change I know.

Just as a bit of background, the company I work for make a week's rota available on a Thursday (for the week following starting from the Monday - four day's notice).  Because of that, it is impossible to actually make any arrangements, which is a common thing for most security companies.

I was off on the Thursday, so when I got to work on the Friday I looked at my rota and was surprised to find that I had the Tuesday off, which surprised me, and that is because I have wanted to take part in something called the First Tuesday Songwriting Group, which is exactly as it sounds.  A friend of mine, Matt Blick who writes the Beatles Songwriting Academy blog, has a monthly meeting where people come in with songs that they have written during the preceding month, perform them, and then everyone discuss the song coming up with positives and negatives.

I wasn't completely sure whether I would be going or not, because there is a tendency in security work for you to be called in on a day off to cover people.  During the shift on Monday night I realised that it seemed very possible that I would not be contacted to work.  When I got home then I was left with the problem that I didn't actually have a song that I had written during that month, so after getting in from work at 7 in the morning, I woke up at about 11 o'clock, had breakfast, and then Louise went to the bedroom to leave me some time to try and write something.

Sometimes it can take a while for something to come to fruition, but here I was lucky in that from I had something virtually completed within 45 minutes.  So on Tuesday evening I went to Matt's in Nottingham.  There only actually ended up just being myself, Matt, and Matt Wood there.  Apparently normally there are more people who go, but I'm guessing that they were probably doing Summertime stuff maybe?

First person to go was Matt Wood with his song Casanova, which I really enjoyed.  I liked the "some were too cool for school, but school was too cool for me" line, which just explained amazingly who the song was talking about, among other things in the song.  Then there was Matt B's great bluesy rock riffed song Fingernails, which again I really enjoyed.  They liked my first verse and the chorus,

After that came my own song.  I was proud of the song, and it went down well.  Suggestions made were great, such as Matt B's "Where you go G to C, you could occasionally do something else but keep the same melody."  This is something that I also worked on for a D minor in the chorus as well, but that is just an extension of that - it wasn't mentioned, but I thought that it was just a natural extension of that.  He also suggested ending with another chorus either in the higher key of A major rather than G major, because it would naturally work after the middle eight in D major, or use that last G/D chord to be the opening G in the end chorus.  I know, that's all very technical and everything, but songs are worked on in this way a lot of the time.

In the end I went for the idea of having that last chorus in A major, but then that took me somewhere else where I excitedly came up with a great way to come from that chorus in A major back to instrumentally finishing on the verse music in the original opening key of A minor via the natural E minor in the A major scale to Bm7, C, and then Dm, Em, and back to the original A minor 7 chord.

Matt W mentioned that some of the rhymes in what is actually the third verse seemed forced, and I explained that I have a tendency to lose it so far through when writing songs (a normal occurrence for a lot of songwriters), and that over recent years I have tended to work through lyrics a lot more - I have initial words for a song, but then over a period of time I go through them to hone them basically.

Anyway, there were other things discussed about each other's songs, but needless to say we all had a great time there.

When I got home I let Louise know that I had such a lovely time, which she said she was glad to hear.  Since moving to Newark, she has said that she has felt bad about me leaving all of that behind - my friends in that music scene, the going out to gigs there, and all of that.  She was happy that I could go and do this and, even though the fuel did cost money to get there and back (24 miles each way), it was worth it to know that I had done something that I had missed - playing music with others.

Hopefully I can do it again soon, and it has started me down the road of writing out a potential set list for gigging.  Shocker!

Post script to this is that when I was sat down with Louise a couple of days later I said "I just can't think of a title for this song."  It was tricky in my eyes because it is a song about a slave basically who is working like crazy, has pain everywhere, cuts, and dreams of a better future in a 'dream sequence' middle eight.  Louise asked me to pass her the lyrics, had a very quick less than two second glance and said "Sometimes".  Why hadn't I thought of that?  Every verse and the middle eight starts with that word?  Of course.  Simple, effective, catchy, perfect.

"Sometimes I feel so old
Eight hours down with four to go
My hands burn from the pain
Of working the land to earn a pittance pay
There ain't no respite to come my way
To bring brightness to my cloudy days"

That was verse one.  Anyway, there we are a blog on one subject, and I am hoping that people find it interesting.  Makes a change for me to stick to one thread.  I don't think I'll post a demo of this song up by the way, so you'll have to wait until it's properly recorded and mixed.

Thank you for reading, please take care.

11 August 2012 (41 years, 8 months, and 16 days old)