(I Distinctly Heard You Say) Still Got You

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So... yet again, a month-plus passes without a peep, marshmallow or otherwise.

But it's not for lack of effort, really.  I promise.

To wit, the efforts have resulted in:

Licensing In the Morning to 12 shows and networks, including: The new "Teen Wolf" on MTV (no, I'm not kidding: apparently werewolves are the new vampires) and a blanket license for any show on Discovery and its suite of networks.

This, is a good thing.

Additionally, there are efforts being made on our behalf to secure some additional advertising and movie licensing... more news as that comes in.

Individually, I've spent the last month wrapping up a really cool spring of Odyssey shows.  Already some nice opportunities lined up for the fall, including a September trip to Jackson, Mississippi, to perform at Millsaps College.

And finally, we are in the swing of triathlon season, having completed our first race at Galena this past weekend... both Andrea and I overcame some obstacles to finish more than 6 minutes faster than we did last year at the same race.  We were both really pleased and are looking forward to our next race in Lake Geneva next month, and then to the Chicago Triathlon in August for Andrea and the (gulp) Ironman Wisconsin race in September for me.

So... that's my excuse for not blogging more often.

And I'm sticking to it.

Now, on to a quick exegesis of the sixth tune on In the Morning... Still Got You.

This song turned out almost exactly as I heard it in my head when I wrote it.  I wanted something upbeat, rocking and loose.

I tried to walk a line with the lyrics between simple and profound.  I guess one doesn't need to walk a line between the two but... simple can very very easily be shallow, and I was hoping to capture something simple, elemental but ultimately meaningful.

The idea was to embrace this basic idea of being "okay" (which I've talked about in previous songs like Fading Days) but be able to simultaneously acknowledge some of the shit from the past.  And try to be a little... I don't know, maybe playful with it?  Wry?  Something... less than heavy.

So I peppered these lyrics with a lot of real life stuff from when I went through my separation and divorce...

Yes: I did sleep on the couch in front of the television for... two years.  Not because there was anybody in the bed I was avoiding, but because there was nobody and I needed the company of the blue light.

And that's okay.

Yes: there are streets that remind me of particularly difficult times, certain goodbyes.

And that's okay.

Because I've still got everything, all of my life, good and bad.  And out of all that shit grew the incredible life that I have today, with my amazing wife and family and friends and music.

It's essentially the antidote to the sentiment of Things We Would Rather Lose (and there's a "skyscraper hearts" reference to boot).


I think I also had classic Motown in mind... the line about "seeds" is an homage to The Onion Song on Marvin Gaye/Tammi Terrell... and the chord pattern/harmonic progression is a straight up Motown rip-off (c.f. C-Lo, F*ck You).


For the recording of this one, we wanted an early Wilco, live-in-the-studio feel... but first, the band had to banish a couple of my stupid arrangement ideas to the "overly-cerebral-songwriting" graveyard.  I had a modulation for the last verse and a couple other things which just detracted from the garage band feel of the tune as we ran it... so Drew deftly created the guitar solo chord pattern and the rest of the tune fell into place.  We initially intended to fade the end, but the band sounded so good on the outro, and the end is so fun (including my stupid semi-sarcastic G'n'R meets Gershwin guitar quote) that we kept everything.

I went after the guitar solos with a vengeance and the results were one fairly composed Allman Bros-esque result for the main solo and a semi-unhinged outro passage.  Very cool.

Finally, we went after some conversational vocals and Jay added backgrounds.  And we had it.

So...

STILL GOT YOU

Can you tell that I've been down and out?
My heart's a bell and it's ringing, ringing loud
Been up all night and sleeping on the couch
In the blue light, just waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting now

Things change
That's okay
We're still here when the heartache fades
Still got you
Still got you
And nothing's gonna take it away

Now we dream of when it fell apart
How they beat, these skyscraper hearts
See the dawn following the dark
Feel the sun swallowing the stars

Things change

That's okay

We're still here when the heartache fades

Still got you

Still got you

And nothing's gonna take it away

Where the streets mark memories and goodbyes

We planted seeds which are growing to the sky

From the cracks in the pavement in our eyes

Coming back as proof that we survived

Things change

That's okay

We're still here when the heartache fades

Still got you

Still got you

And nothing's gonna take it away from me

jbg

Here and There (Dry)

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Yet another lapse in publishing... largely due to traveling here and there (mostly there) for some wonderful Odyssey performances.

It's not every month you find yourself in Rochester, New York, and Fayetteville, Arkansas, on successive weekends, to perform a folk opera.  Isn't there an old proverb about that?  Also, has anyone ever started a Kansas cover band called Arkansas?  Probably.

On to the next song on In the Morning...

Dry.

There's actually not much to say about this one.

Lyrically, it is what I like to call a "promise song."  It had been a long long while since I was able to write about the future, and I took this opportunity to try and say everything I could to my then girlfriend, soon-to-be-fiancee, now-wife.

I recorded an acoustic version of this song as a wedding present and we played it at our ceremony.

And it was the first song we recorded for the In the Morning sessions... the live arrangement was frighteningly simple and we got a good take pretty quickly.  I wound up redo-ing the guitar part with a wonderful tone on my old Gibson... and I played with my fingers rather than a pick, which seemed to be one of those small recording decisions which made a huge difference.

We brought in a guy named Brian Wilkie to record some pedal steel and he knocked it out of the park.  Did like 3 takes, any of which we could have used almost wholesale.  Really beautiful playing.

I did the vocals very quickly without thinking.  The best way to do vocals.

And we got a really pleasant sounding mix.

I really love this song for its simplicity.... there are a couple little personal references... to old songs, to specific things between Andrea and me... and I guess writing this song made me realize that there's a subtle dark undercurrent to every shining love song... namely that when you consider staying with someone for the rest of your life, you also have to consider mortality...

But that's a little bit heavy for today.

So... here are the lyrics.

DRY

I'll take away all your sorrow
I'll take away all your pain
Before today becomes tomorrow
I'll say the things I couldn't say

'Cause time won't wait for us
The sky might open up
But I will keep you dry
Until we're gone

I will try and change the season
As summer fades and embers smoke
If the fight destroys the reason
I'll write the song I never wrote

'Cause time won't wait for us
The sky might open up
But I will keep you dry
Until we're gone

I will cry when you are grieving
I will smile when you are true
When the time has come for leaving
I'll fly with you into the blue

'Cause time won't wait for us
The sky might open up
But I will keep you dry
Until we're gone

I will keep you dry
Until we're gone

jbg

Fading Days

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Who can go two months between posting?

I can.  Yes, I can.

Already almost a quarter of the way into 2011 with very little chance to catch our breath... because of mostly good things.

We officially released In the Morning this month, coordinated with a big college radio push to 300 stations.  Results so far seem good: the record has been added to and played at about 150 stations, and only rejected from 10.  Additionally, we've seen top 30 chart placement as high as number 3 on some stations, which is higher than Things We Would Rather Lose ever made it.  Looking forward to seeing how the next month goes and how many additional stations add and play it.

It's available on iTunes, Amazon, and online retailers including CDBaby and Quell Records.

It's always interesting getting a little distance from a recording project.  There is such an intense focus on it, from writing to pre-production to recording to pressing and marketing... you start to lose perspective on it somewhere in the process, and it's not until months after it's done, when you stop listening to and thinking about it all the time, that you can really assess what it means, how it turned out, and how you feel about it.

Sometimes it takes years to sort it all out.

So this week, as I've been working on press, radio, publicity and licensing, I've been listening to In the Morning again.

Maybe for the first time, actually.

And I like it.

A lot.

I'm proud of it and I think it says exactly what it means to say and sounds the way it should sound.

Actually, if I had to pick my favorite thing about all three Paper Arrows records, it would be that: a sense that each record (and really, each song) sounds the way it should sound.  And each record embraces its own unique identity for (mostly) better or worse, but always for the sake of honesty.

On a personal note, I'm especially proud of the lyrics.  They fit next to Look Alive and TWWRL, but I feel like I found a slightly different voice on this one... something both more personal and a little more universal, easier to grab onto.

So in honor of getting back into In the Morning, I'm going to finish what I started late last year, and do a little posting on each of the remaining 7 songs in the hope that it encourages readers to check the record out, and also because it helps me understand what I wrote and where to go next...

Today's song: Fading Days.

(Deep breath)

This one is a bear.

I think it qualifies as what I call a "kitchen sink" tune... I tried to throw everything I had into it, every meaningful image, every poetic device... every theme from the album as a whole.

I'll begin with the recording of it and then get to the lyrical content.

This is one of the few songs on which we started with a concrete idea of where we wanted to take the production and overall sound.  We worked a wonderfully simple arrangement... and this song contained one of my favorite collaborative moments... well, ever.  We got to the bridge and in about 30 seconds, everyone in the room contributed an idea, from the texture to the chord progression, down to leading tones on each instrument.

I wish this moment was recorded because it was just a beautiful example of everyone sublimating the ego for the betterment of the song.

Drew came up with a fantastic little variation for the double chorus at the end. And we had an organic and very live skeleton upon which to create the rest of the sound.

Darren added a second drum kit, and even with two drum tracks, the song maintained a certain amount of sonic space.  I believe Drew added an organ track to go with the live piano he tracked.  I was able to use my live rhythm guitar track in its entirety, which is always a nice feeling (all those lessons, finally paying off!).

This song has maybe the most involved guitar part on the record: a dense, Jimmy Page inspired lead track that fills up the choruses.  Jay and I wrote and recorded this two nights before the Chicago Triathlon.  I remember because I was abstaining from drinking for the race, which in the studio feels... different.  I generally really enjoy a beer while I record, especially for tracking guitars.  But in this case, I think I focused a bit better and the result is a simple but layered line which we doubled and put an octave pedal on for further impact.

I cut the lead vocals in Studio A and we did some cool layers on the choruses, making use of the space in the Vault... which Jay augmented with his typically great background parts.

And... we had it.  To my ears, an awesome combination of space and density (god, I sound like an idiot rock critic... oops, that's redundant).

Although I guess the space/density was what I tried to navigate with the lyrics.  As I wrote above, the verses have a certain labored over approach.  They all follow the same imagery pattern and somewhat tricky rhyme scheme.  Which is in contrast to the simplicity (both in verbiage and theme) of the choruses.

The basic idea, which pops up all over In the Morning, is that of just being "okay" with things.  Which sounds... simple? Trite? Boring? Stupid?

I don't know.  I think when we go through loss we tend to focus on being "good" again, when really we have to feel "okay" before we can be "good."  And we have to be "okay" with the stop and start nature of recovery, that even when we think we're "good," we're still going to have shitty days.

And Fading Days is a way better title than Shitty Days, and actually, as I write this I realize that Fading Days and Shitty Days are two different things entirely...

Wow.  I'm now having an argument with myself on my own blog about my own lyrics.

One more point and then maybe I should shut up and post the lyrics: this song also has instances of me writing something I thought I should believe, but wasn't really sure if I did at the time (or even now still).

Does that make sense?

Sometimes I write things that I want to believe in the hope that the act of writing it and putting it in song will make it true.  Or at least help me believe it.

Maybe like an act of prayer... which is something I'm starting to connect to the fourth Paper Arrows record, which I've been writing for the last few months...

Anyway, here it is:

FADING DAYS

If I could take your scars I'd lay them in a line
And stitch the skin with needle and thread
Like the thread that runs from your life to mine
And pulled us in until our damage met

If I could live your days I'd put them in the ground
And work the dirt until the colors bloomed
Like the red that runs in rivers in these rooms
Within my heart as it beats for you

Do the echoes ever keep you up at night?
Why did someone have to leave for us to get it right?
It's okay to still have fading days
I know you do

If I could catch your tears I'd drop them in the sea
Where they would mix and finally disappear
When they were gone you know our lives would be as clear
As the lights on the lines that lead us here

Do the echoes ever keep you up at night?

Why did someone have to leave for us to get it right?

It's okay to still have fading days

I know you do

Where there is none

Don't look for pain

You can call it love

'Cause all love's not the same

If we can stay

Then we'll both be saved

Do the echoes ever keep you up at night?

Why did someone have to leave for us to get it right?

It's okay to still have fading days

You know I do

jbg

Goes to '11

Two months since I last wrote?

Wow.

Almost like I've been preoccupied with... everything.

But never fear (I know, you were afraid): big plans for '11.

How do you top a year in which you made a career change, heard your music on TV, got married, recorded two albums, and played a month of shows without repeating a song?

More soon.

jbg

Smoke and Ash

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And listen to the home demo...


Going back over the development of these songs is fascinating.

It's like an archeological dig. Lyrics scattered over two full writing books. Ideas floating in and out.

To wit: I found the first hint of the chorus of what eventually became the song Smoke and Ash on April 23, 2009.

It reads:

No it's not okay if you (illegible scratch out)
Go away it's not okay
If you stay here

No real context, although I guess it's notable that immediately following is scrawled "We wish our lives were as clear as the lights on the lines that lead us here," which became the punchline for Fading Days, the next song on the album. Of course, that line first appears even further back on February 28, 2009.

Whew.

Back to Smoke and Ash.

On April 27, 2009, it becomes:

No it's not okay if you go
Stay
I'm we're I'm falling apart
in the days
Love

By the end of that day it becomes:

No it's not okay if you go
Stay
We're fading away into

On April 28, 2009, some heavy lifting was done:

No it's not okay if you go
Stay we're fading away into
Into summer   melodies
       birds and words left
       in the air broken silence
       smoke and ash
and

Followed on the next page by:

Not it's not okay if you go
Stay we're fading away
Into smoke and ash
and words written
       lonely
_________________________


No it's not okay if you go
Stay we're fading away
        Into smoke and ash
    From the fires we'll
      couldn't (illegible)
        never forget

Aha!  Finally.  The chorus of Smoke and Ash more or less fully formed (although there are several small but significant changes it goes through before being finished).

After 13 pages of work on the verses on April 28, 2009 (transliterations of which I'll spare you), on April 29, 2009, I found the following:

Our broken days have burned away
But words you spoke like holy ghosts remain
Like "In time even love will change"
and "The bigger that your heart is
the harder it breaks"


No it's not okay if you go
Stay we're fading away into
Smoke and ash from fires
                   we'll never forget 


Trying the best we can
To stand up and make plans
             for what will come
But silence is easier than fear
We wish our lives were as clear 
        as the lights on the lines 
        that lead us here


(Chorus x2)
    (we'll always regret)
                   ?

So: here is first draft of what I called Smoke and Ash.

The chords for the verses: Can't even remember them.  They weren't good.  Neither were the words. You can see a couple lines that wind up in other songs: the aforementioned "lives as clear as the lights" and also "the bigger that your heart is the harder it breaks," which wound up in Echo in Disguise, and was actually originally from a song I wrote in 2007/08 (!) for Things We Would Rather Lose called "The Silence That Remains."

The chords for the chorus however, survived intact.  This version was even in the same key as the final product.  Smoke and Ash taught me once and for all that you never, ever under any circumstances let go of a strong chorus.  You keep cranking out verses until you get something the stands next to your chorus, even if it takes months or years.  I had a somewhat similar rewriting experience with Skeletonskinandsky when I rewrote the verses wholesale several times, but Smoke and Ash was an even bigger undertaking: I essentially started over lyrically and harmonically.

On October 20, 2009, I started banging out new lyrical ideas for the verses, but left the chords intact.  Also on October 20, 22, 23, 26, 27, 28, November 3, 4, 5,  and 6, I kept pounding these new verses.

On November 17, 2009, "approx. midnight," I started a new writing book and the first page is labeled thusly:

Smoke and Ash
(Rough)


I walked out
And fell into the night
The city told me to hold on tight
Time is loud
It drowns out all our songs
Songs of love gone bad, the life we had, and right and wrong


No it's not okay if you go 
And go fading away into
Smoke and ash 
From fires we always regret


On our skin lie lines of yesterday's fights
Like two rivers run becoming one at the sea
A desperate heart knows nothing but its own sound
So feed it now, it's calling out in our dreams


CHORUS
[NEED BRIDGE]

Fascinating.  To me, at least.

There's tinkering on November 23, and then... nothing for this song until January 25, 2010,  when, after stumbling across a pretty fingerpicking pattern in the same key as the original chorus, I wrote a new first verse for Smoke and Ash on the 25th and 26th, and then a second verse on February 8 and 9.

And just like that, 10 months and (at least) two incarnations later, Smoke and Ash was done.

Sort of.  Not quite.

I demoed a quiet fingerpicking version with no bridge on March 4, 2010. (See above)

After Jay and I decided it was a winner, I finally pieced together a bridge (the last lyrics written for the record) on May 7, 2010, and demoed a more aggressive and completed Smoke and Ash on May 10, 2010.

Over a year after first writing the chorus.

Wow.

Archeo-lyrical dig indeed.

The final lyrics, which I'll post below, speak for themselves.  There are a couple anchors/landmines, but it's simply a song about dealing with your past, rather than boxing it up and setting it aside, and all the other little things we do to avoid fully coming to terms with trauma.  Yes, I know we have to (and do) compartmentalize to some degree during crises just to survive, but at some point you have to tear open the boxes and confront the pain, the uncertainty... the anger.  Whatever it was you boxed up.  You have to stop filtering your words and falling into the days.  Otherwise, you risk fading away into the past and its troubles.  So the chorus turns into a more defiant statement of this purpose.

The recording session for this was great.  We nailed it after just a couple takes and Drew did some cool Space Echo stuff live during band tracking.  He also overdubbed a symphony of keys over the bridge, adding a unique texture.  I added one rhythm guitar to go with the one I recorded during basic tracking (we kept both), and also a solo of which I'm really proud.  A lot of attitude and feel.  And tone.

The vocals we did super-relaxed, which came across really well.  I pitched this song perfectly, if I do say so myself.  Very comfortable to sing and in my wheelhouse.   Jay added backgrounds and really killed the mix on this one.  It sounds gigantic, and somehow the vocals just cruise on top.

It really is a trip to look at the first two drafts and then the final lyrics and see how little they resemble each other.  I think there's a lesson there.  Somewhere.  About persistence.  And not settling.  And most of all, about hard work.  And unpacking those boxes until there's nothing left in 'em.

************

SMOKE AND ASH

Is this any way to live?
Filling the silences with words poured through a sieve
Into your heart
Until it pulls apart

In this any way to die?
Falling into days until we close our eyes
And moving on
And moving on

No
It's not okay if you go
And go fading away into smoke
And ash from fires we'll always regret

Is this any way to be?
Sorting through photographs and dreaming of the sea
And who we were
So unsure

Is this any way to try?
We pack up boxes and we stack them to the sky
And build a wall
And they all fall

No 

It's not okay if you go

And go fading away into smoke

And ash from fires we'll always regret

The light from your eyes

Falls on the lines on my face

As you try to replace 

What can only be taken away

[Solo]

No 

It's not okay if you go

And go fading away into smoke

And ash from fires we'll always regret

jbg