I got some positive feedback for my recent post that broke down the composition process of a few of my newer songs, so I figured what the hell, why not try it with another one? Only I figured I'd keep it shorter by only doing one song! Having said that:
This song I wrote towards the beginning of this last summer. Many a years ago, I decided I wanted to write a song over that riff. Just a standard bluesy riff that you can teach anyone that's played guitar for a month. So I just played it and started improving lyrics. The only one that really stuck was this little line "And Icarus, I'll burn your wax wings if you come any closer." So I wrote that down on a paper, and left it aside to come back to many years later...
This time when I came to it, just for something to work on, I was trying to think of how that lyric could be expanded on. Listening to the riff, I thought of distance, separation. Something about the repetitive emptiness in it. Now instead of just blankly rambling/singing, I had a topic to work with! I pingponged between writing lyrics that seems to fit with that theme, and layers to add to the music.
The easy thing to do was add chords to try filling it out more, maybe a little plucking thing for texture, stuff like that. I wanted to keep an openness to the sound of the overall thing. The thing I ended up coming up with that I really like is the thing that's going on in the background of the solo there. All I did was use an ebow and a slide, add some reverb on it, and noodle with it in the background of the solo. It was little thing I've tried experimenting with several times, ever since I saw Radiohead use the Ondes Martenot. I tried recreating that sound because I love the organic quality to it and the eerie space it has. It was just enough to propel the song forward, keep it's interest, keep it's humanity, as well as it's openness. It's a technique that may be worth expanding on, and maybe getting more skill with.
As I wrote the lyrics it became more about the inability to communicate and keep people at a distance, comparing other people to both black holes and wolves. It's one of my favorite pieces, I just wish I could find a way to play it with other people to maybe fill it out a bit. Anyway, let me know what you think!
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