So Good News for Love has been out a month today.
So far, so good.
And not a bad time to consider the song from which the album takes its name: Wrap Your Arms Around.
This one takes the prize (if we're giving prizes?) for "Song that Changed Most in the Recording Process," as you can hear in the demo
compared to the final version
So yeah... this one went in a little bit of a different direction.
Which is great.
The freedom to take different approaches and change up tunes in recording is one of my favorite things about Paper Arrows... and that's been there ever since the very first song we recorded, Look Alive.
It's fun for me for a couple reasons.
First of all, it allows me to write without considering production. I can focus on good chords, good words, good melodies... all the while knowing that once I get the song with a producer like Jay or Darren and in a room with guys like Miles and Dan, as long as the fundamentals of the song are good, things will turn out well.
Second of all, it allows me to have an almost third person relationship to my own material... which in turn makes it more exciting for me to work on and hear in finished product because it's new to me.
And that's pretty much how Wrap Your Arms Around unfolded. We had worked it a little bit in pre-production, but the final recording was largely a product of getting good music minds in a room and playing the tune until it clicked, not being afraid to follow it somewhere different.
When it came time to mix, we followed the sound completely and wound up with something of which I'm really proud... organic but produced, roots but modern. Good stuff.
The lyrics...
Well, of course the song from which I took the album title (or rather the song in which I PUT the album title) would be important.
3/4 of it was written pretty quickly, in a day, and attached to the chorus, which was written a week prior. The last verse (which is actually the third verse of the song: "He was grieving in the morning") wasn't written until just before the sessions and was just about the last lyrics written for the record.
While the "good news for love" line is big (wrote about it HERE), the most important line on the whole record is "love is not an answer or a battle to be won."
That's really the best news Love has gotten in a long, long time, and it's what I'll continue to wrap my arms around each and every day.
*****************
WRAP YOUR ARMS AROUND
He was working on a novel and sleeping in the days
With a cigarette companion, going page by page
But somewhere in the years, he got out of the game
She was dreaming of a painting and working in the days
Looking out the window and bleeding blues for grays
But somewhere in the years, she got out of the game
What are you gonna wrap your arms around?
Who is gonna hold you safe and sound?
Who is gonna keep your heart
From sinking in the dark
You're not alone
He was grieving in the morning and leaving in the days
Singing til he whispered and nothing was the same
And somehow it was clear, so he got out of the game
What are you gonna wrap your arms around?
Who is gonna hold you safe and sound?
Who is gonna keep your heart
From sinking in the dark
You're not alone
He was hoping for a daughter, praying for a son
But love is not an answer or a battle to be won
And somewhere in tears, he got back in the game
What are you gonna wrap your arms around?
Who is gonna hold you safe and sound?
Who is gonna keep your heart
From sinking in the dark
You're not alone
Good News for Love
jbg
Friday, November 22, 2013
Monday, November 11, 2013
What Changed
I love the recording studio.
Everything about it. The energy, the people, the collaboration, the ups and downs... The feeling of walking into a studio in the morning with literally nothing but some songs in demo form and ending the day with nearly fully-realized versions? Amazing.
It wasn't always that way for me. I used to be downright terrified of the studio. Maybe not terrified but apprehensive at least. Afraid of making mistakes. Afraid of failing.
That changed around the time I started writing and recording as Paper Arrows. The shift towards embracing and relishing the studio environment had to do with improvements in my writing and singing, but also with a change in how I thought about the process.
I used to think: "What if I make mistakes? What if I suck?" I remember figuring out while we were recording the first Paper Arrows record Look Alive that the answer to these questions was pretty simple: "Erase what you did and try again."
Sounds obvious, right? The studio is consequence-free risk-taking. Where else does that exist in life? Actually, let me tweak that. The studio is consequence-free creative risk-taking. There is, of course, almost always a financial risk and consequence you take when you go into a studio to record, but on the creative side? Freedom to make mistakes and try again.
Part of what helped me to embrace the recording process was that we recorded Look Alive in an attic, not a proper recording studio. Making it more informal and also working with Jay in this setting was key in helping me turn the corner, gain confidence, and love recording.
We recorded subsequent Paper Arrows records in more formal studio settings, mostly at I.V. Lab Studios, with primarily the same crew of musicians and engineers (and, most importantly for my comfort level, with Jay producing)... so it was pretty easy for me to bring the feeling of comfort I found it the attic during Look Alive into the sessions for Things We Would Rather Lose, In the Morning, and Days of Getting By.
Which brings us to Good News for Love.
For a number of reasons I made a number of changes to how, where, and with whom we recorded.
How: after four records with Jay producing, Darren took over the captain's chair.
Where: after four records done largely at I.V. Lab Studios in Chicago (and the attic and a little bit at Gravity Studios), we went to The Midwest Sound in Rockford.
With whom: after four records built around me (guitar and vocals), Darren (drums/keys/etc.), and Jay (bass, backing vox) with liberal doses of Drew and Luke on piano/keys, we signed up Miles Nielsen for bass and Daniel McMahon for guitars.
All these changes were exciting but a little intimidating to me. All three of the other musicians are not only great at their respective instruments, but also accomplished writers, arrangers and producers... so I felt a little bit of that old anxiety work its way into my preparations...
Well, I needn't have worried...
Here's a little photo synopsis of the setting and personnel...
So the studio is setup throughout an old farmhouse-type building, which immediately made me more comfortable because it reminded me of recording in the attic.
Darren and I arrived Friday night and we hung out and talked through the sessions with Dan.
On Saturday morning, Miles showed up and we got to work.
We set up in a circle in the live room and started playing through the tunes. We'd work each tune until the arrangement felt good and then track until we got a good take. Then on to the next song. Some songs came a little faster, some took more experimentation, but in general we worked quickly and had basic tracks for five of the six songs by just after dinner time on Saturday.
I can't remember where we dropped What Changed, but I remember being a little bit nervous about how it would go. We hadn't done a ton of pre-production on it... I knew I wanted to try and preserve the strummy acoustic guitar part (I think I referenced the song Sweet Thing when we were talking sonic approach) but that was about it.
In the blur of recording activity, one moment stands out:
While we were tracking What Changed, Miles muttered under his breath: "I don't even know what key I'm playing in."
I thought that was awesome. Because when I wrote the tune, I had the same experience. I had my guitar in drop D tuning with the capo on the third fret because I was learning the song "Never Going Back Again" by Fleetwood Mac for a wedding I was playing. My hands found a couple of the chord shapes from that song, added the little walk up pattern, and What Changed was born. And because I was in an alternate tuning with a capo, I never really processed what chords I was playing... I just followed them to where they sounded like they should go and more or less wrote the entire song that way.
I love the idea that we weren't thinking about the technical/theoretical aspects of the song, we were just playing it. Listening, reacting, and playing.
Anyway, the arrangement is really excellent. It feels super organic to me, very honest, and not overly thought-out. I think Dan played the piano on it and Darren added the other key pads later on.
I got some nice coaching from everybody on this one as I recorded the vocals and I'm really proud of how it turned out.
Lyrically... there's been a tune on each album that has a special lyrical significance to me, which usually means I'm more excited about it than other people get... and I think this is the tune. It's generally because it seems more intensely personal and I feel like I've somehow captured something really close to basic, really elemental, some truth I've been working through that I finally figured out for myself.
For What Changed, it's this: when you've been in a relationship and you've said the words "I love you" and then the relationship ends in spite of that... how do you say the same words again to a new person in your life and not be afraid it will also end? When "I love you" wasn't enough once before, how do you know it will be enough when you try again? What's different when you say the same words to a different person?
I think my take on it is pretty plainly spoken in the song... and there's another nice layer: I appropriated the lyrics from the song Fight from Look Alive as well as the melody and dropped them into the chorus.
Here's the tune from which I took:
So I'm indeed using old words and melodies and recasting them in a new song for a new part of my life...
And if you're going to do that, if you're going to use the same words and succeed, what needs to be different is you.
And that's what changed.
I also made a video for the song with a couple of stuffed badgers... some people like it, some don't but I think it's fun and somehow appropriate to the sentiment of the song...
WHAT CHANGED
Laugh in the night and out the front door
Sing in your sleep and let the song soar
In the name of love and truth
And all the things you couldn't see but sang before
In the hope that they'd appear
Anything you do
I won't fade into the blue
I've gone back to the start with the same words
And some old melodies
So what changed?
It must be me and you
Dream in the day and let the dream stay
Love in the light and let the love fight
Until it bleeds and fades
And then you lift it up again and make it right
And live your life for something more
Anything you do
I won't fade into the blue
I've gone back to the start with the same words
And some old melodies
So what changed?
It must be me and you
jbg
Everything about it. The energy, the people, the collaboration, the ups and downs... The feeling of walking into a studio in the morning with literally nothing but some songs in demo form and ending the day with nearly fully-realized versions? Amazing.
It wasn't always that way for me. I used to be downright terrified of the studio. Maybe not terrified but apprehensive at least. Afraid of making mistakes. Afraid of failing.
That changed around the time I started writing and recording as Paper Arrows. The shift towards embracing and relishing the studio environment had to do with improvements in my writing and singing, but also with a change in how I thought about the process.
I used to think: "What if I make mistakes? What if I suck?" I remember figuring out while we were recording the first Paper Arrows record Look Alive that the answer to these questions was pretty simple: "Erase what you did and try again."
Sounds obvious, right? The studio is consequence-free risk-taking. Where else does that exist in life? Actually, let me tweak that. The studio is consequence-free creative risk-taking. There is, of course, almost always a financial risk and consequence you take when you go into a studio to record, but on the creative side? Freedom to make mistakes and try again.
Part of what helped me to embrace the recording process was that we recorded Look Alive in an attic, not a proper recording studio. Making it more informal and also working with Jay in this setting was key in helping me turn the corner, gain confidence, and love recording.
We recorded subsequent Paper Arrows records in more formal studio settings, mostly at I.V. Lab Studios, with primarily the same crew of musicians and engineers (and, most importantly for my comfort level, with Jay producing)... so it was pretty easy for me to bring the feeling of comfort I found it the attic during Look Alive into the sessions for Things We Would Rather Lose, In the Morning, and Days of Getting By.
Which brings us to Good News for Love.
For a number of reasons I made a number of changes to how, where, and with whom we recorded.
How: after four records with Jay producing, Darren took over the captain's chair.
Where: after four records done largely at I.V. Lab Studios in Chicago (and the attic and a little bit at Gravity Studios), we went to The Midwest Sound in Rockford.
With whom: after four records built around me (guitar and vocals), Darren (drums/keys/etc.), and Jay (bass, backing vox) with liberal doses of Drew and Luke on piano/keys, we signed up Miles Nielsen for bass and Daniel McMahon for guitars.
All these changes were exciting but a little intimidating to me. All three of the other musicians are not only great at their respective instruments, but also accomplished writers, arrangers and producers... so I felt a little bit of that old anxiety work its way into my preparations...
Well, I needn't have worried...
Here's a little photo synopsis of the setting and personnel...
 |
| Live room, live drummer |
 |
| The crew |
 |
| Setting Up |
 |
| Things with which to make noise |
 |
| More timpani |
 |
| Control Room |
 |
| Sure, why not? |
 |
| Our elusive engineer |
 |
| Back into the live room |
 |
| Set up |
 |
| Wall of something |
 |
| Everyone needs one |
 |
| No leftovers |
 |
| Improvised equipment |
 |
| Miles and Dan |
 |
| More preparations |
 |
| Still more preparations |
 |
| Pretty much ready to go |
So the studio is setup throughout an old farmhouse-type building, which immediately made me more comfortable because it reminded me of recording in the attic.
Darren and I arrived Friday night and we hung out and talked through the sessions with Dan.
On Saturday morning, Miles showed up and we got to work.
We set up in a circle in the live room and started playing through the tunes. We'd work each tune until the arrangement felt good and then track until we got a good take. Then on to the next song. Some songs came a little faster, some took more experimentation, but in general we worked quickly and had basic tracks for five of the six songs by just after dinner time on Saturday.
I can't remember where we dropped What Changed, but I remember being a little bit nervous about how it would go. We hadn't done a ton of pre-production on it... I knew I wanted to try and preserve the strummy acoustic guitar part (I think I referenced the song Sweet Thing when we were talking sonic approach) but that was about it.
In the blur of recording activity, one moment stands out:
While we were tracking What Changed, Miles muttered under his breath: "I don't even know what key I'm playing in."
I thought that was awesome. Because when I wrote the tune, I had the same experience. I had my guitar in drop D tuning with the capo on the third fret because I was learning the song "Never Going Back Again" by Fleetwood Mac for a wedding I was playing. My hands found a couple of the chord shapes from that song, added the little walk up pattern, and What Changed was born. And because I was in an alternate tuning with a capo, I never really processed what chords I was playing... I just followed them to where they sounded like they should go and more or less wrote the entire song that way.
I love the idea that we weren't thinking about the technical/theoretical aspects of the song, we were just playing it. Listening, reacting, and playing.
Anyway, the arrangement is really excellent. It feels super organic to me, very honest, and not overly thought-out. I think Dan played the piano on it and Darren added the other key pads later on.
I got some nice coaching from everybody on this one as I recorded the vocals and I'm really proud of how it turned out.
Lyrically... there's been a tune on each album that has a special lyrical significance to me, which usually means I'm more excited about it than other people get... and I think this is the tune. It's generally because it seems more intensely personal and I feel like I've somehow captured something really close to basic, really elemental, some truth I've been working through that I finally figured out for myself.
For What Changed, it's this: when you've been in a relationship and you've said the words "I love you" and then the relationship ends in spite of that... how do you say the same words again to a new person in your life and not be afraid it will also end? When "I love you" wasn't enough once before, how do you know it will be enough when you try again? What's different when you say the same words to a different person?
I think my take on it is pretty plainly spoken in the song... and there's another nice layer: I appropriated the lyrics from the song Fight from Look Alive as well as the melody and dropped them into the chorus.
Here's the tune from which I took:
So I'm indeed using old words and melodies and recasting them in a new song for a new part of my life...
And if you're going to do that, if you're going to use the same words and succeed, what needs to be different is you.
And that's what changed.
I also made a video for the song with a couple of stuffed badgers... some people like it, some don't but I think it's fun and somehow appropriate to the sentiment of the song...
WHAT CHANGED
Laugh in the night and out the front door
Sing in your sleep and let the song soar
In the name of love and truth
And all the things you couldn't see but sang before
In the hope that they'd appear
Anything you do
I won't fade into the blue
I've gone back to the start with the same words
And some old melodies
So what changed?
It must be me and you
Dream in the day and let the dream stay
Love in the light and let the love fight
Until it bleeds and fades
And then you lift it up again and make it right
And live your life for something more
Anything you do
I won't fade into the blue
I've gone back to the start with the same words
And some old melodies
So what changed?
It must be me and you
jbg
Monday, November 04, 2013
Sing It Out
Another week, more progress with Good News for Love. More college radio stations have added the record to their playlists and play is building.
The song that we're pushing as the "single" is Sing It Out, which is track 2 (unedited) and track 7 (radio edit).
It's the first song I've ever recorded that has a swearword in it. For whatever that's worth. I guess I can check that box.
Actually, I do keep a semi-formal list of words I'd like to use in songs... some curbed from other songs, some I come across in reading... some that come up organically in the process of writing.
Sing It Out has one such word: buckshot.
On September 6, 2012, I made a list of the songs that might be a part of Good News for Love...
Noticeably present are Almost Maybe, Love and Light, and Forever, which were all subsequently jettisoned.
Noticeably absent are The Counting Song and Sing It Out.
On the facing page, I started a stream of consciousness burst of writing that lasts about 45 lines and contains the seeds of what became Sing It Out, including:
"beneath my skin"
"buckshot"
"this song is for me and you and her and him and every single voice that whispers or shouts"
"every mouth, every face, every body"
It was like an explosion of ideas with no shape.
The week of September 10, 2012, I decided I would try to write one song a day for the whole week.
And on September 10, I started to play around with these words and phrases from my September 6 burst. By the end of that day of writing I had the first two verses of Sing It Out in exactly the form they appear on the record.
The chorus at that point was simply me singing the phrases "Say it now" over and over, and that was what the song was called.
On September 11, I wrote a song called Let It In.
On September 12, I wrote The Counting Song.
On September 13, I made another list of the songs for Good News for Love:
So that one week of writing more or less defined the final shape of Good News for Love.
In December, as I revised the songs in advance of our recording session, I took a good portion of the words from Let It In and put them in Sing It Out as a third verse and also shaped the chorus a little bit better.
This whole development, the way a group of songs grows and shrinks, is pretty typical of how I write. When I'm writing for a new record, I write a handful of songs without even really considering how they fit together... just to get something out. At some point, when that handful becomes two handfuls, I look at what I've written and try to ascertain what it is I'm writing about... and then I take those themes, which I hope have bubbled up somewhat organically, and try to write the rest of the record around them.
I think of it as writing my way into a project and then trying to write my way out... and this particular week I've chronicled above seems like the nexus of these two approaches for Good News for Love.
When it came time to record it, Darren had a couple really cool ideas for vocal harmonies and arrangement and we hammered out the band tracks of it pretty quickly. The song only has three chords so attention to detail and dynamics are really, really important. The chorus turns on a shortened version of the verse progression, and we did some really neat and subtle things with the accent patterns in the drums and bass throughout and added a couple small but important variations in the form. I played acoustic guitar and Dan destroyed the guitar solos. Just wonderful playing. We rehearsed the background vocals all together live but I think we wound up individually tracking them... some tough stuff there, very very rangy.
All in all it seems to be the track people are most responding to from a radio and commercial standpoint...
(A personal note and plea regarding the economics of the music industry: I'm going to post a stream of the final version of each song in each blog post. I feel like if you make the effort to come to my blog and read it, you should get to listen to the song and I hope it enhances the experience and meaning. That being said, if you like the song, I would highly highly highly encourage you to go download it from iTunes/Amazon/CDBaby. It means a ton to me and has real and lasting impacts on my music career. And I would extend that to ANY song/artist you enjoy: buy the music if you want to support them. Recorded music is now nearly virtual in its existence thanks to the digitalization of the business so it's becoming easier to forget that each recording is a THING that people worked on. A lot of people spent a lot of time and money on making and releasing this album (as is true of almost every recording you hear) so I hope if you like it you'll support it and me by purchasing it like you would any other product that brings you value. Of the $.99 you pay per track on iTunes/Amazon/CDBaby, a minimum of $.65 comes back directly to the artist, and (I cannot overstate) means so much to me. /rant)
So about the lyrics: I like that they retained some of the features of that first bit of stream of consciousness writing... the words just kind of pour out, the ideas and syntax are connected but sometimes only loosely... I think it gives it a feel of urgency and investment.
I also know that when I started these words I thought it was going to be a song about anger but by the time I got to the end of it, I was writing about love.
And I like the hopefulness in that.
It's not an accident that every song on this record has some variation of the word "love" in it.
Love is a much, much better word than buckshot... although Good News for Buckshot... hmmmm...
SING IT OUT
Words beneath the skin like buckshot
Sinking deeper in 'cause they're not
Ready to begin, ready to come out in the light
This is for me and you and him and her
And all the voices whisper
Shout into the dark from any mouth on any face
Of any body without grace
Sing it out, sing it out
Sing it loud, sing it loud
If you fail if you fall sing it out
Sing it out for love
I'm not scared to sing this song
To close my eyes and soldier on
until All of this shit is gone except the pale bones
And if I go before my time in simple chords and simpler rhymes
I'll leave an open code behind
To tell you who I was
CHORUS
The waters rise in city streets
The buildings fall we can't believe
How silence fills an empty heart until it cannot beat
I will light a light for you
And pull you close and see you through
And fight until I'm black and blue
CHORUS
jbg
Actually, I do keep a semi-formal list of words I'd like to use in songs... some curbed from other songs, some I come across in reading... some that come up organically in the process of writing.
Sing It Out has one such word: buckshot.
On September 6, 2012, I made a list of the songs that might be a part of Good News for Love...
Noticeably present are Almost Maybe, Love and Light, and Forever, which were all subsequently jettisoned.
Noticeably absent are The Counting Song and Sing It Out.
On the facing page, I started a stream of consciousness burst of writing that lasts about 45 lines and contains the seeds of what became Sing It Out, including:
"beneath my skin"
"buckshot"
"this song is for me and you and her and him and every single voice that whispers or shouts"
"every mouth, every face, every body"
It was like an explosion of ideas with no shape.
The week of September 10, 2012, I decided I would try to write one song a day for the whole week.
And on September 10, I started to play around with these words and phrases from my September 6 burst. By the end of that day of writing I had the first two verses of Sing It Out in exactly the form they appear on the record.
The chorus at that point was simply me singing the phrases "Say it now" over and over, and that was what the song was called.
On September 11, I wrote a song called Let It In.
On September 12, I wrote The Counting Song.
On September 13, I made another list of the songs for Good News for Love:
So that one week of writing more or less defined the final shape of Good News for Love.
In December, as I revised the songs in advance of our recording session, I took a good portion of the words from Let It In and put them in Sing It Out as a third verse and also shaped the chorus a little bit better.
This whole development, the way a group of songs grows and shrinks, is pretty typical of how I write. When I'm writing for a new record, I write a handful of songs without even really considering how they fit together... just to get something out. At some point, when that handful becomes two handfuls, I look at what I've written and try to ascertain what it is I'm writing about... and then I take those themes, which I hope have bubbled up somewhat organically, and try to write the rest of the record around them.
I think of it as writing my way into a project and then trying to write my way out... and this particular week I've chronicled above seems like the nexus of these two approaches for Good News for Love.
When it came time to record it, Darren had a couple really cool ideas for vocal harmonies and arrangement and we hammered out the band tracks of it pretty quickly. The song only has three chords so attention to detail and dynamics are really, really important. The chorus turns on a shortened version of the verse progression, and we did some really neat and subtle things with the accent patterns in the drums and bass throughout and added a couple small but important variations in the form. I played acoustic guitar and Dan destroyed the guitar solos. Just wonderful playing. We rehearsed the background vocals all together live but I think we wound up individually tracking them... some tough stuff there, very very rangy.
All in all it seems to be the track people are most responding to from a radio and commercial standpoint...
(A personal note and plea regarding the economics of the music industry: I'm going to post a stream of the final version of each song in each blog post. I feel like if you make the effort to come to my blog and read it, you should get to listen to the song and I hope it enhances the experience and meaning. That being said, if you like the song, I would highly highly highly encourage you to go download it from iTunes/Amazon/CDBaby. It means a ton to me and has real and lasting impacts on my music career. And I would extend that to ANY song/artist you enjoy: buy the music if you want to support them. Recorded music is now nearly virtual in its existence thanks to the digitalization of the business so it's becoming easier to forget that each recording is a THING that people worked on. A lot of people spent a lot of time and money on making and releasing this album (as is true of almost every recording you hear) so I hope if you like it you'll support it and me by purchasing it like you would any other product that brings you value. Of the $.99 you pay per track on iTunes/Amazon/CDBaby, a minimum of $.65 comes back directly to the artist, and (I cannot overstate) means so much to me. /rant)
So about the lyrics: I like that they retained some of the features of that first bit of stream of consciousness writing... the words just kind of pour out, the ideas and syntax are connected but sometimes only loosely... I think it gives it a feel of urgency and investment.
I also know that when I started these words I thought it was going to be a song about anger but by the time I got to the end of it, I was writing about love.
And I like the hopefulness in that.
It's not an accident that every song on this record has some variation of the word "love" in it.
Love is a much, much better word than buckshot... although Good News for Buckshot... hmmmm...
SING IT OUT
Words beneath the skin like buckshot
Sinking deeper in 'cause they're not
Ready to begin, ready to come out in the light
This is for me and you and him and her
And all the voices whisper
Shout into the dark from any mouth on any face
Of any body without grace
Sing it out, sing it out
Sing it loud, sing it loud
If you fail if you fall sing it out
Sing it out for love
I'm not scared to sing this song
To close my eyes and soldier on
until All of this shit is gone except the pale bones
And if I go before my time in simple chords and simpler rhymes
I'll leave an open code behind
To tell you who I was
CHORUS
The waters rise in city streets
The buildings fall we can't believe
How silence fills an empty heart until it cannot beat
I will light a light for you
And pull you close and see you through
And fight until I'm black and blue
CHORUS
jbg
Monday, October 28, 2013
Why We Work
The release of Paper Arrows' Good News for Love is off and running and running well. Very, very pleased with the launch and first week. I'm prepared for the long fight when it comes to pushing this record so I don't want to get too excited, but in general everything felt right about the digital release and beginning of radio promotion last week Tuesday.
To start, it's available on iTunes, Amazon, and CDBaby.
Which of course is the minimum amount of success required for an actual release but having gone through a number of projects compromised by a number of administrative challenges... I'm always happy when a record shows up in the right places at the right time with everything spelled correctly.
Also, we've hit 300 college radio stations with the album and are getting some nice rotation adds and spins after less than a week.
And we have a silly but (I hope) heartwarming video out and an awesome more straightforward fan-engaging video in production.
And, probably most importantly, I have tentative but elaborate and substantial plans for how I want to work the record over the next six months, starting with a weekly song-blog post every Monday for the six weeks it will take me to write about each song on the album.
Which brings me to this week's appropriately-titled song: Why We Work.
Over the years I've done a dedicated post on every recorded Paper Arrows song. One of the things I enjoy the most about these posts is digging back through papers and demo recordings to find the genesis and trace the development of each song.
Sometimes (actually, usually) I remember each step of how a song has come to be fixed in its final form... every word I agonized over, every "Aha" moment, every rewrite and key change...
So it kind of surprised me as I went searching this morning in my writing journals for some background on Why We Work... that I couldn't remember anything about when or how it began.
I found the earliest words back in November of 2011, written on the same day I finalized most of the words for Tell the Kids, which actually makes sense: the original version of both songs are in the same slightly-altered tuning, drop D. So I'm guessing I was working on Tell the Kids and stumbled into the picking pattern that became Why We Work.
At that point, the song was called (I guess?) I'll Stay Lonely and had no chorus of which to speak but on November 16, 2011, the verses are there and basically identical to what was recorded 15 months later.
The next development is what fascinates me the most...
On February 3, 2012, I wrote this:
On the left I list the tracks for our previous release, Days of Getting By (which wouldn't come out until almost three months after this entry), and all alone on the facing page I write "Good News for Love."
I've figured out that this is the Huffington Post article that gave me the name of the new record. It's nowhere to be found on the site now (damnit), but when I clicked on it, "Good News for Love" was the title and it's dated February 2, 2012, so it makes sense I would have seen it the following day and appropriated it.
I think what was happening at this time was that we were getting close to finishing the recordings that became Days of Getting By and I was stressed that I didn't really have much new material written... by the time an album wraps up and is released I like to have the next one well underway and at this point, it appears I had been struggling to write anything of note.
So on February 9, 2012, I wrote:
That's right:
Thisshit ship won't right itself
This shit won't write itself
That's why we work
What started as an admonition to myself to write more "shit" became the theme of the album: Love is work.
Or rather, if you love something, you had better damn well be prepared to work for it. And that can be love of music, love of a person (like in the Huff Post article), or really love of anything.
And if you keep working, the love is amplified. Often slowly and in ways you don't expect or perceive. But it grows.
So the song became this:
(Eventually the "shit" would disappear altogether although a number of people have picked up on it as a ghost presence...)
And on February 10, 2012, I wrote this:
It seems like I had an inkling that Why We Work would be the starting point for Good News for Love from the very beginning... (side note: the other song listed there, Forever, was not recorded for GNFL but is currently serving as backstop for the NEXT Paper Arrows recording which... okay, my head hurts even starting that line of thought)
Here's a demo of the verses and choruses recorded in September of 2012, which is a little sketchy in quality but has something in its hushed hiss that I like.
When Darren and I sat down in late 2012 to plan the sessions for what became Good News for Love, Why We Work was included from the start with very few changes. I wrote a bridge which is simple but connects the concept of work to love.
My memory of recording this is that it was pretty easy and straightforward. It was the kind of song that dictates how it should be recorded in how it is written. I played my beautiful ghost-filled 1963 Gibson ES-125 and kept the fingerpicking pattern intact.
The rhythm section is spare but propulsive. We took the basic tracks of rhythm and lead guitars, drums and bass and added piano (played by Dan) at The Midwest Sound. I cut the lead vocals and then Darren took the song and added (I think) accordion, banjo, and background vocals.
It's simple but layered especially as a headphone listen and builds nicely.
A couple little things I love... the squeak of the piano bench at the beginning, the way I locked the word "distance" near the end of the first verse with the kick drum and bass, the banjo part under the second and third choruses, the little bit of unexpected dissonance near the end of the third chorus before the tags... so many lovely touches.
Here's the final version:
(A personal note and plea regarding the economics of the music industry: I'm going to post a stream of the final version of each song in each blog post. I feel like if you make the effort to come to my blog and read it, you should get to listen to the song and I hope it enhances the experience and meaning. That being said, if you like the song, I would highly highly highly encourage you to go download it from iTunes/Amazon/CDBaby. It means a ton to me and has real and lasting impacts on my music career. And I would extend that to ANY song/artist you enjoy: buy the music if you want to support them. Recorded music is now nearly virtual in its existence thanks to the digitalization of the business so it's becoming easier to forget that each recording is a THING that people worked on. A lot of people spent a lot of time and money on making and releasing this album (as is true of almost every recording you hear) so I hope if you like it you'll support it and me by purchasing it like you would any other product that brings you value. Of the $.99 you pay per track on iTunes/Amazon/CDBaby, a minimum of $.65 comes back directly to the artist, and (I cannot overstate) means so much to me. /rant)
When it came time to do the track order for the record, both Darren and I listed Why We Work as the first track so it seemed like the message was clear: Good News for Love should start, like most good things, with an ode to work and love.
Hope you enjoy.
WHY WE WORK
Now the dust has settled and the light is in the western sky
And time is slowly creeping 'round the corners of our tired eyes
And faintly in the distance someone's calling out in hopeful song
That all will be forgiven when the shadows fade into the dawn
This ship won't right itself
This ship won't right itself
This ship won't right itself
That's why we work, why we work
And the winter's coming to the city by the lonely lake
To cover up our autumn fears and wrap us in a silver haze
The streets are quiet as we walk into an empty room
That used to hold our secrets when all that I could breathe was you
CHORUS
Don't you be afraid
Of following the broken way
Get back to a place
Love is waiting
CHORUS
jbg
To start, it's available on iTunes, Amazon, and CDBaby.
Which of course is the minimum amount of success required for an actual release but having gone through a number of projects compromised by a number of administrative challenges... I'm always happy when a record shows up in the right places at the right time with everything spelled correctly.
Also, we've hit 300 college radio stations with the album and are getting some nice rotation adds and spins after less than a week.
And we have a silly but (I hope) heartwarming video out and an awesome more straightforward fan-engaging video in production.
And, probably most importantly, I have tentative but elaborate and substantial plans for how I want to work the record over the next six months, starting with a weekly song-blog post every Monday for the six weeks it will take me to write about each song on the album.
Which brings me to this week's appropriately-titled song: Why We Work.
Over the years I've done a dedicated post on every recorded Paper Arrows song. One of the things I enjoy the most about these posts is digging back through papers and demo recordings to find the genesis and trace the development of each song.
Sometimes (actually, usually) I remember each step of how a song has come to be fixed in its final form... every word I agonized over, every "Aha" moment, every rewrite and key change...
So it kind of surprised me as I went searching this morning in my writing journals for some background on Why We Work... that I couldn't remember anything about when or how it began.
I found the earliest words back in November of 2011, written on the same day I finalized most of the words for Tell the Kids, which actually makes sense: the original version of both songs are in the same slightly-altered tuning, drop D. So I'm guessing I was working on Tell the Kids and stumbled into the picking pattern that became Why We Work.
At that point, the song was called (I guess?) I'll Stay Lonely and had no chorus of which to speak but on November 16, 2011, the verses are there and basically identical to what was recorded 15 months later.
The next development is what fascinates me the most...
On February 3, 2012, I wrote this:
On the left I list the tracks for our previous release, Days of Getting By (which wouldn't come out until almost three months after this entry), and all alone on the facing page I write "Good News for Love."
I've figured out that this is the Huffington Post article that gave me the name of the new record. It's nowhere to be found on the site now (damnit), but when I clicked on it, "Good News for Love" was the title and it's dated February 2, 2012, so it makes sense I would have seen it the following day and appropriated it.
I think what was happening at this time was that we were getting close to finishing the recordings that became Days of Getting By and I was stressed that I didn't really have much new material written... by the time an album wraps up and is released I like to have the next one well underway and at this point, it appears I had been struggling to write anything of note.
So on February 9, 2012, I wrote:
That's right:
This
This shit won't write itself
That's why we work
What started as an admonition to myself to write more "shit" became the theme of the album: Love is work.
Or rather, if you love something, you had better damn well be prepared to work for it. And that can be love of music, love of a person (like in the Huff Post article), or really love of anything.
And if you keep working, the love is amplified. Often slowly and in ways you don't expect or perceive. But it grows.
So the song became this:
(Eventually the "shit" would disappear altogether although a number of people have picked up on it as a ghost presence...)
And on February 10, 2012, I wrote this:
It seems like I had an inkling that Why We Work would be the starting point for Good News for Love from the very beginning... (side note: the other song listed there, Forever, was not recorded for GNFL but is currently serving as backstop for the NEXT Paper Arrows recording which... okay, my head hurts even starting that line of thought)
Here's a demo of the verses and choruses recorded in September of 2012, which is a little sketchy in quality but has something in its hushed hiss that I like.
When Darren and I sat down in late 2012 to plan the sessions for what became Good News for Love, Why We Work was included from the start with very few changes. I wrote a bridge which is simple but connects the concept of work to love.
My memory of recording this is that it was pretty easy and straightforward. It was the kind of song that dictates how it should be recorded in how it is written. I played my beautiful ghost-filled 1963 Gibson ES-125 and kept the fingerpicking pattern intact.
The rhythm section is spare but propulsive. We took the basic tracks of rhythm and lead guitars, drums and bass and added piano (played by Dan) at The Midwest Sound. I cut the lead vocals and then Darren took the song and added (I think) accordion, banjo, and background vocals.
It's simple but layered especially as a headphone listen and builds nicely.
A couple little things I love... the squeak of the piano bench at the beginning, the way I locked the word "distance" near the end of the first verse with the kick drum and bass, the banjo part under the second and third choruses, the little bit of unexpected dissonance near the end of the third chorus before the tags... so many lovely touches.
Here's the final version:
(A personal note and plea regarding the economics of the music industry: I'm going to post a stream of the final version of each song in each blog post. I feel like if you make the effort to come to my blog and read it, you should get to listen to the song and I hope it enhances the experience and meaning. That being said, if you like the song, I would highly highly highly encourage you to go download it from iTunes/Amazon/CDBaby. It means a ton to me and has real and lasting impacts on my music career. And I would extend that to ANY song/artist you enjoy: buy the music if you want to support them. Recorded music is now nearly virtual in its existence thanks to the digitalization of the business so it's becoming easier to forget that each recording is a THING that people worked on. A lot of people spent a lot of time and money on making and releasing this album (as is true of almost every recording you hear) so I hope if you like it you'll support it and me by purchasing it like you would any other product that brings you value. Of the $.99 you pay per track on iTunes/Amazon/CDBaby, a minimum of $.65 comes back directly to the artist, and (I cannot overstate) means so much to me. /rant)
When it came time to do the track order for the record, both Darren and I listed Why We Work as the first track so it seemed like the message was clear: Good News for Love should start, like most good things, with an ode to work and love.
Hope you enjoy.
WHY WE WORK
Now the dust has settled and the light is in the western sky
And time is slowly creeping 'round the corners of our tired eyes
And faintly in the distance someone's calling out in hopeful song
That all will be forgiven when the shadows fade into the dawn
This ship won't right itself
This ship won't right itself
This ship won't right itself
That's why we work, why we work
And the winter's coming to the city by the lonely lake
To cover up our autumn fears and wrap us in a silver haze
The streets are quiet as we walk into an empty room
That used to hold our secrets when all that I could breathe was you
CHORUS
Don't you be afraid
Of following the broken way
Get back to a place
Love is waiting
CHORUS
jbg
Friday, October 18, 2013
Good News for Love
The longest lapse in publishing this blog since I started it in 2005.
Six months.
Even in the haze of 2006/2007 I would still find the time and energy to post something every once in awhile... a song list, some lyrics, an obtuse sentence.
But not now.
Part of it has to do with the how the character of this blog has changed over the years... it started out as a chronicle of my life (which included music) and morphed into a chronicle of my music (which has become more my life).
And there hasn't been a lot of concrete music stuff about which to write this year. To be sure, there's been a lot of work on music, just not the kind of work that lends itself to blogging.
I've been writing songs here and there, I've been playing wonderful moving shows of my Odyssey, I've been teaching an ever-changing but always wonderful diverse group of students...
And I've been wrestling with Paper Arrows.
As regular reader of this blog will no doubt already know, Paper Arrows is the name under which I've been writing and releasing music since 2008.
Jesus! I can't believe I just typed that sentence that way! Like a fucking press release! And now I'm pretending I can't erase it and using it as a rhetorical device! Gah! Now I just typed "gah!" What the fuck?!
Really, what I'm reacting to is how hard a time I have saying Paper Arrows is ME.
Of course the sounds on our records aren't me alone... I've been lucky enough to work with super-talented musicians and producers on every recording we've made and they have shaped the sound of Paper Arrows' music immeasurably...
But the Paper Arrows songs are me.
And the project, the name, the content, the successes and failures, the strengths and shortcomings of it... they're all uniquely me.
And some days that's fantastic.
And some days that sucks.
And the last 6 months or so, it's been a struggle.
Last year I signed an actual honest-to-goodness record deal with an indie record label. The label put out our last record, Days of Getting By, and gave me money to record another EP almost immediately, which played right to my strengths: I've developed great relationships with guys who work for modest amounts of money (by industry standards) and do incredible work. I write quickly and have, I think, a pretty good head for putting a cohesive record together.
So in February of this year, I booked time in a studio called The Midwest Sound in Rockford, IL.
On each previous Paper Arrows recording, I've worked with Jay Marino acting as producer and Darren Garvey as the drummer and multi-instrumentalist. It's been us three, going back to when we recorded the first Paper Arrows album, Look Alive, in the attic above Darren's apartment in 2007. These guys have meant more to Paper Arrows than anyone. Their talent and friendship and generosity... truly something special.
On this new recording, we changed things up a little. Darren acted as the producer. Jay's role was limited to mixing the record.
So Darren had the idea to go out to The Midwest Sound in Rockford, where he's worked before, and bring a couple new musicians into the fold. These were: Daniel McMahon and Miles Nielsen, who are co-owners of the studio and excellent writers and producers in their own right. Dan would play lead guitars and Miles would play bass.
The studio is contained in an old farmhouse-like building in a rural area of Rockford. Totally away from everything. And in this solitude, we recorded almost the entirety of a six song EP in one weekend.
I'll write more about the weekend, the band, and the specifics in future posts, so all I'll say here is that it was a fantastic experience and I couldn't have been happier with the results.
I was even happier once I heard the final mixes. This was a record I had wanted to make for a number of years, in style and substance... and I finally had.
So I sent the mixes off to the label and...
[REDACTED FOR LEGAL CONCERNS]
So after negotiating an unexpected severance of my record contract, which was supposed to take my music career to another level, I was left with an unreleased record I absolutely loved (the new one), our previous EP (Days of Getting By), and having lost almost all the momentum I thought we gained with our 2011 release In the Morning (licensed on 10 separate episodes - and counting - of TV shows, licensed to an indie movie, written about, and led to us being named as a Chicago band to watch in the Trib, etc.).
That's not to say the experience was a total failure. I learned a ton about what the record business is, about how capital impacts it, and about a number of things that I'm sure will help me down the line if another label ever comes into play for me.
And I feel comfortable saying that we made a phenomenal sounding record on a small budget in what would count as a heartbeat by music industry standards.
But for all this knowledge and experience I gained, the reality of it was that I was not expecting to have to coordinate a release logistically or financially in 2013: I thought someone else would be doing it for me.
And even more, the whole thing left me exhausted, empty and questioning what we had created... questioning my ears and my taste. Subsequently it's become clear to me that I was right in trusting what we had created, trusting the musicians around me, and trusting myself.
So I've got that going for me. Which is nice.
The other thing I have going for me is that I've successfully put out three other Paper Arrows on my own. And I should be proud of that. I've gotten notable college radio play. I've gotten press. I've gotten licensing. All on my own.
So after sitting on this finished EP for a number of months, I'll be releasing it next Tuesday, October 22, 2013, on the label I started in 2007, Quell Records.
Releasing it digitally and to college radio. I've partnered with a prestigious and wonderful college radio promoter that I'm really, really excited about.
And these sounds that I've been listening to for months will be available on iTunes and the other usual digital partners next Tuesday.
As far as a release show and physical availability... I'm still fighting that. As good as I've been at writing, recording and releasing material, I've been that challenged at making Paper Arrows a viable and consistent live band. For any number of reasons both logistical and creative.
But I'm okay with that for now.
So if you're reading this, I hope you'll support me and Paper Arrows by checking out the release on iTunes or Amazon next week and picking up a copy if you dig it. Every download is meaningful to us, especially in the absence of live shows.
Our record is our business, which is pretty old school and flies in the face of everything the current music industry tells you but you know what?
Fuck them.
This is how I'm doing it for now.
We have a record for sale, I'm proud of it, and I hope you'll pick it up if you like it and tell your friends and enemies about it.
It's called Good News for Love.
By Paper Arrows.
jbg
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