And so to the last one. The first demo of this song arrived on 30th January, although Rob had already mentioned that it was an existing lyric that perfectly fitted the new tune he had come up with.
The song was very REM sounding - we both thought so, and it was great to have a guitar based song that was going to be included. The trouble is, with the REM style strumming guitars, it didn't leave a lot of space for me to invent anything. Neither of us ever try to compete with the other. A lot of people in this business are just born show offs, and although there is nothing wrong with that (after all it is entertainment), I think Rob and I are past that stage, and wanted what is best for the songs. This, in my opinion, is why we have worked together so well and come up with 12 finished songs in 5 months.
With that in mind, I just recorded some simple piano chords along with the guitar, and added a flute on a couple of the fills. I sent the first mix through and Rob soon replied that he loved what I had added, but wanted it louder - so I duly obliged. He then wanted an atmospheric sound way back in the mix on the choruses, but, try as I might, these sections of the song were just too "busy" already to add anything to, but it needed something.
I eventually settled on a very simple string line behind Rob's guitar solo which I think has really worked well - see for yourself on the clip.
We were almost there, apart from waiting for Rob's additions to "Ordinary Man" at this stage - as previously mentioned, they have now come through. Rob spent a lot of time working on the running order of the songs for the album - this is a very important part of the process. The order he sent through looked good and I re-arranged all my copies of the songs into the suggested order on my Ipod and had quite a few listens - it was perfect, although I was surprised he left "I believe in you" until last.
Here is the clip of the 12th and final song. It is to be the 2nd on the finished album.
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I kinda like this song, mainly because my voice is a bit odd on it! The reason for that is the night before I recorded the vocals on this track, I had played a gig in town and my voice was rather husky from all that singing (or shouting in my case). Normally I wouldn't go near the studio after a nights playing
ReplyDeleteas I am usually quite tired (no spring chicken anymore!) but for reasons unknown to me, I was feeling rather sprightly the next day and so I ended up singing on this track.
I recognised early on my voice was a bit wierd, but pressed on because I quite liked the huskyness of it. The song has a REM kind
of vibe, especially that guitar intro, middle, and ending, but what hasn't been done before? Once I had a melody together I wrote a lyric that wasn't that great (usually my weak point). But as fate would have it, I found a lyric that I had written some weeks earlier, after an online friend of mine sent me an
e-mail with the line "Dreaming On The Night Sky" in it, and I stole it, and wrote the lyric you now hear on this song.
As by some coincidence, it fitted my melody
perectly, so there you have it, some weird energy going on there I think? I love the additions Paul added, the flute and strings are just the right amount of colour in what is mainly a guitar rhythm styled song, and the piano fills it out really nicely! Paul got the final mix on this one too! "If it aint broke, then why fix it?"