THE BIRTH AN ALBUM: Part 2: The evolution of a song

“I have a structured songwriting process. I start with the music and try to come up with musical ideas, then the melody, then the hook, and the lyrics come last.”

–John Legend

Will we ever know the age old question of what came first the chicken or the egg? It can be debated back and forth and each has it's valid arguments. The same goes with songwriting: what comes first the lyrics or the music? Each musician does it differently. Some even uses a combination of both. I know in my process it's usually a pretty set structure of how I come up with a song. The music comes first.

I think the music usually comes first to me because I am constantly doodling on the guitar. Sometimes there's a progression that starts to form that evokes a certain emotion inside of me. That's usually the beginning of a future song. I have many ways of capturing these little doodles. I have my iPhone that I'll record either a video snippet or just the audio to come back to later. I have my home recording studio that I'll record little snippets for later use. I also have a whole library of notebooks that I store my ideas in as a line of song may come into my head. No matter which way I start, it's always a beginning. It's a start, but sometimes the ending doesn't come until days, weeks, months, or even years later.

In the last blog THE BIRTH AN ALBUM: PART 1, I started talking about a song of the new album SEES THE LIGHT called "For you". This is a song that was years in the making! Literally! Back in 2019(ish) my family and I stayed at the beach. In the mornings while drinking my first cup of coffee, I would take my guitar on the back porch and just play. Sometimes it was working on a cover song and sometimes it was my doodling on the guitar. At the time I was listening to Vance Joy's album DREAM YOUR LIFE AWAY and I loved his finger style playing he does on the songs "Mess is mine", "Fire and Flood", and "Georgia". This is a fantastic album by the way and if you get a chance take a listen! I was learning his song "Mess is mine" and afterwards come up with a little doodle.

I did as I normally do when I come up with a doodle I like, I recorded it on my iPhone to use later. From that point until a year ago, I kept playing this little doodle but I could never come up with a lyric to it. I even tried coming up with a melody (using just sounds) and I kept hitting a wall. Nothing was coming or forming from this. With the passing of time more doodles came about and even produced doodles that I was able to form words to. Every now and then I would break out the doodle from the beach to try it again and nothing!

Fast forward (or rewind!) to a year ago and just as the shutdown was happening from the pandemic I had more time at home. I used that time to play more music and create more doodles. One day I started fingerpicking my beach doodle and this time I was able to come up with what would become the chorus progression.

Bingo! It seemed like not more than an hour later I had the pandemic running through my mind. I thought about how are we (my family) were going to get through this. I though about the toll and the fear it was causing not only me, but also my wife. We were alone trapped in our house, isolated from the world. When you are in this state, fear and depression start to kick in. This started to effect me and that was the emotion that was going through my mind as I played the chorus progression. One line came to my mind as I played this, "I would give my all to you, just to help you through, climb the mountains from the valleys below." Now, not to toot my own horn here or sound self-conceited, but this line to me was a winner! From here it sparked my creative fireworks and explosions started to happen. It seemed like the lyrics just came one after another once I had this spark. I'll admit, I wasn't able to finish this chorus line, but it gave me a jumping point to start from. The next line that came was the one that starts off the song and ended the long slump of nothingness of my original beach doodle. The line was, "When times are tough and the world is falling apart."

Now I'm not kidding when I say that I was able to finish the song within an hour or two after this (with the exception of recording it and the extra musical parts). It just amazed me how a little doodle I had years back that excited me took many years to finish. Anytime I get a musical idea I have to jot it down. Anytime I get a progression that excites me, I record it for later use. You never know when might be a good time it can get finished.

This was also the song that kickstarted my newest album SEES THE LIGHT. It was from this point that I knew I wanted to create an album with a theme revolving around what we were going through in the pandemic. Not just because I knew everyone was going through this event and could relate to it, but also music can be used as a means of therapy. With all the bad that was going on around me, I could always feel excited or joy when I would pick up the guitar or hit the record button. That's what I needed during that terrible time. Everyone has a way of coping through tragedy and music is mine.