Songwriting

Music is a beautiful thing! Not one person on this planet can stop themselves from tapping their foot in time to a catchy song. Erm...but...er...the deaf. Yeah, we'll scrap that and start again.


Music is a beautiful thing (I'm keeping that bit). Chances are you'll find a song inspiring. Music can give you motivation. It can help through the lows and it can help through the highs. Music is everywhere but this isn't about music. Behind music is a skeleton of thorough going-ons and important boxes that need to be ticked. The first box is probably learning how to play an instrument which has taken me most of my teenage life (and still learning). You learn how to play the instrument and then you start learning how to play songs. If, like me, you play the guitar, the first song you learn to play will probably be Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple.

So you've started to learn songs, now where do you? You can either continue learning how to play songs and eventually grow up to become a tribute act/covers band, which is fine but lacks a creative spark; or you find out what goes with what and what words and whatever and you write a song all of your own. It's the musical equivalent of a blank canvas to an artist. A covers band is like taking a picture of Leonardo Di Vinci's Last Supper, printing it out and sticking it on your wall saying "I did that." No, you've just made another version of it. On glossy paper. Whereas with this "blank canvas" you could make anything, say "I did that" and probably get more praise for it. And that is exactly what I have done.

In my entire live music career with my band (Delayed Finality), we have only played one cover and that was of Take Me Out by Franz Ferdinand in a school music contest. Now when the audience at the end cheered, I didn't know if they were cheering for the delivery me, Matt, Rowan and past member Danny gave, or for the song. This was probably my incentive to pursue with my own songs. I can remember writing Last Star in the Sky, trying to get the lyrics finished in one night along with a chord line before 12 o'clock. I even remember that it was the 20th July 2007. But for the love of me, I can't remember how I managed to get the first chords or even the first lines of lyrics. The title was simple. Sometimes on a clear night, all you can see in the sky is one star and the moon. Now, both you and I know there are more, probably on the other side of the house. So, what I did next was genius. It's not the only star, it's the last star. Ahh, sounds more romantic. First song - done. And it turned out to be a rather alternative rock ballad, not the prissy sort of crap the Jonas Brothers vomit out. Which is good (I'm not going to tell you any lyrics or who it's about, or indeed any of them. You're going to have to do it the old fashioned way and go out and listen to it for yourself). The was a good feeling of satisfaction when the song was finished and the following morning when it got transfered onto the electric guitar, it sound amazing. I wrote this. It was my song. Chris Martin better look out! A year rolled by, I got a brand new Fender 1972 Telecaster Deluxe, my pride and joy, wrote more songs and had played that silly music competition and was ready for the next round. In that next round, it got serious. The judges of the competition were looking for a range of criteria, one of them being 'future potential' so bear this in mind. We went out there with one of my songs; Equipment of the Futile - a heavy brooding alternative rock song a million miles from Last Star. Or at least it should have been if the sound technician wasn't as thick as what he was on the night. We were the only one's who managed to have a song written especially for playing live and we didn't get through to the final because we're not squeeky clean like little Jenny singing a Sugababes song! And, surprisingly, we haven't even heard of any of the other acts ever since. The only one who has something on the go, was mine, Rowan and Matt's friend Charlie who was in a band called The Sweetest Prosecution. Mainly because he's in a band...oh...that band...Delayed Finality...that's it. We're the only one's still on the go. But my point is, if you think you can do it, you can do it.

Picture the scene. It's a rather warm June evening. I'm awaiting to go onto stage for the first time as Delayed Finality at a local Lincoln venue called The Travellers Rest. There's a band playing before we go on later in the evening and I'm enjoying the music and getting to know my surroundings before we go onto that stage. At this point I'm thinking rather contemptly "There's only 4/5 people actually watching this band (as well as everyone else, just not "getting involved like these few guys are")" I thought if our set was anything like this, then it'd be a nice enjoyable evening, pack up, go home and that be the end of that night...
Wrong-o! As the set list ran, more and more people started cramming into this not-very-big function room. And finally the band before us were playing. By now, my, and no doubt the other members, nerves were very edgy but I wasn't going to pull out of something like this. The band before us finished and left us with around about 50 - 60 hungry music enthusiasts, none of them moving from the last set - they were ready to see us. We set up and roared into life. Now either the crowd were enjoying our music or they were so blind drunk, they were just making noises and our ears made them out as cheers. But the latter was wrong. They weren't drunk. They were enjoying the songs me and Rowan had written.
We have a song called Equilibrium. When this gig was played, it was called Donderkoodal and it was very different to how we interprate it today. It was a rather poppy-cheesy lighter indie styled song (now it's an arpeggiated synth driven beast of a tune). Cheap and cheerful sort of thing. It had predominant 'heys' in the instrumental break and the crowd were singing them back to us as if they had heard the song before. It was really bizarre! This was the first time it had ever been played live. EVER! How did the possibly know? After closing with Equipment of the Futile, the one that officially started the road to this point, we left with people wanting "more...! More!" Mission complete. The ruptious applause was fantastic. It gave me such a buzz and no one was cruel about us being complete novices at doing something like this. It was like they were giving us some space. Although, you can imagine a room full of 50 people, there wasn't really much space to give. Afterwards we were knocking about, trying to calm down and people were coming up to us congratulating us for our achievement. "That was a pretty good set. How often have you guys played" they would say. "This is our first time" we replied. "Really? Wow!"
Although that's not the end of the story. Remember that first band that only had a few people watching. It was thier last gig. And along came 4 teenagers with all the live knowledge of a doorstop and with songs that had came out of our minds and been transfered into music we stole the show.

Now, song writting isn't all glamour. I have to have the right time to write a song. If I'm not in the mood, I can't do (that sounds a bit familiar to something else). But when the creativity starts, I even astound myself. I don't like to beat around the bush, but I think my song Last Star in the Sky is a lyrical masterpiece. Metaphors, imagery and other words you probably came across when studying English at school. I mention that I wrote it 2007 and 3 years down the line, a few lyrics have changed from the original but the basic story of the song is the same. I tell you. Rhyming "dream" with "meteor stream" is genius! The whole song is. However, like I say, it isn't all glamour. My niavity somewhat showed itself in the songs that came after it. I wrote one called "Want You Dead" which, if you've ever heard The Gutterati by The Fratellis and Woman by Wolfmother, you'd know where the inspiration comes from. It was a very scratchy and very rolling, heavy, distorted, pile of rock. The lyrics were terrible. I had no idea how I could have made a song of such calibre of Last Star and then suddenly all of my fantastic sounding lyrics had suddenly gone. Want You Dead was rubbish! The words of the rhyme were awful. "Chain" and "brain" aren't very lyrical. Yet I thought they were. I even got the words "kiling spree" in there. Well...you need some sort of link. I can actually remember the words "Want You Dead" but remember what the original rhyme was. Then, along came a song called "Bullet Time Motion" Bullet Time Motion is actually a media term. Put simply - Neo from The Matrix in the big fight scenes. That's Bullet Time Motion. I've just read the lyrics to the song and some of them aren't all that bad, but musically...noooo! If that wasn't bad enough, "Ghosts" was even worse. That was 3 songs with bad writting, in a row! Things got really better with the aptly named Save Us which was followed by the equally good High Flying, Equilibrium and Promise. These must have set me up properly because the songs that came after these were brilliant. Lyrically sound, musically pleasant and hardly any spelling mistakes! Songs now only need a bit of jiggling around or if I find something that sounds a lot better in possition of something else. And that's it.

So song writting. It's essential. It's fantastic. It's a pain in the backside sometimes too. Forgotten took me 11 months to finish. That was almost a year. But when that got finished, I got the bug and wrote I'll Show You Where To Go within a couple of weeks. Now I'm still writting one that's been on the go since the beginning of the year, still called (New One) but I've gotta find the right time to write it. Sometimes when it's very quiet and I'm a little bit tired, I enter a sort of trance-like-state, and that's how I think I managed to write Last Star. And also how I probably can't remember how I came up with any of it! Because it was late at night. That writting songs late at night made me write Late At Night. I found inspiration from doing something later than what I normally should have done. Well, part of the inspirations come from stuff like that. Other inspiration comes from...


(I know it looks like I haven't been bothered to finish the blog, I'm just leaving you on a cliff hanger)