A moment's hesitation

There was a blogging gap of a week not so long ago; during that time I was involved in the final stages of a new song, "A moment's hesitation", which is now available for playing at Soundclick.

The chord sequence and tune came when I was playing around on my keyboard at the beginning of December; being unable to think of any words, I continued playing with the music and commenced building an arrangement in Reason. Every now and then, opening lines would appear in my mind, but they weren't very good and didn't really lead anywhere. I was confident that I would be able to write the lyrics when a suitable title or theme appeared, but I was having trouble in finding that title or theme.

It wasn't until I watched the bad film "Did you hear about the Morgans" that the synapses began to fire. The film was about a separated couple and the unconventional way in which they came back together. If one would ask me, there is no way that I would want to be reunited with the character played by Sarah Jessica Parker, but I wouldn't mind being the Hugh Grant character, who managed to get in several witty lines. It was these lines which sparked my imagination. I'm fairly sure that the lines which I wrote in my pocket notepad weren't spoken by anyone in the film (and if they were, they would have come from Parker, not Grant), but even if they did, one is allowed to quote a line, especially after changing it slightly.

One evening I wrote most of the lyrics to the song; the next morning I realised that the verses were in the wrong order (what was written as the first verse should come after the second verse). I also added a third verse, which took its inspiration from the final paragraph of Robert Silverberg's novel, "Dying Inside" (highly recommended reading). This is a novel about a person who can read people's minds; it's not so much about what he finds there but rather about the fact that his mind reading skills are diminishing rapidly and soon he will be a normal person who has wasted most of his life. The prose is exquisite and the final paragraph is touching. It seemed appropriate to close the song with a few lines inspired by that paragraph, about a man who has had and has lost.

Once the lyrics were completed, I started singing them against the sketched arrangement. It quickly became clear that one line of lyrics had to be changed slightly in order to be singable, and that the final line would have to be changed. Going over the lyrics in my mind without listening to the music gave hints for a few important changes in the arrangement.

With the new musical ideas aboard, I spent many hours on Thursday and Friday getting the notes exactly as they should be. This might be seen as a very frustrating process because every time that I thought that I had finished the arrangement, another idea would pop up. I see it as a most exciting time - so engrossing that I missed the time at which I was supposed to start cooking dinner on Friday afternoon (only by half an hour). Eventually I reached a stage where I could find nothing more to change and 'fixed the image'.

On Saturday morning I spent several hours singing the song and trying to mix the vocals with the music. As often happens, the results of the first vocal session have to be abandoned later, whereas the results of the second vocal session (Saturday evening) are usually quicker, easier and better. I had a completely mixed song on Saturday night which I played to myself frequently that evening and Sunday, almost getting to the mental place where I was unable to listen to the song any more. Then I played the song a few times to my wife, getting the seal of approval. From there, the path to Soundclick was very short.

I still may have second thoughts regarding the arrangement and opt for something with more space in it. Such second arrangements normally start about a year after having recorded the song; it may be something that I hear or a new technique which makes me want to try out the song in a different manner. Of course, sometimes I hear mistakes which I didn't catch previously and a new arrangement allows me to correct those mistakes - and possibly creating new mistakes at the same time.