On 23 July, I noted the beginnings of a new song, with the imposing 7/4 time signature. Judging by my dated demos, the arrangement came together moderately swiftly, and by 22 Aug, I had what I considered to be the final version of the music.
Words, of course, were a different matter. The primary reason for the lack of words was that I had no ideas about what to write. The secondary reason was that each line in the song has only five syllables, so this became quite an important technical constraint. Eventually one evening I wrote "So the journey starts/To an unknown place/How long will it take?/What will be the pace?", which of course is referring to the process of writing the words - the journey being the process of writing and the unknown place being the destination, the completed lyric. I had no idea how long it would take me to write the words.
Unfortunately, after this belated start, I couldn't progress. I opened a document in which I would occasionally write the odd couplet, but nothing was sticking together, and certainly not for the length of the required lyric. Then another evening had me writing "She knows me so well/Knows the words to say/<missing line>/How to get her way" - this was definitely interesting. This could be about someone who is in a relationship with a woman but is totally under her thumb. There was a third line, but I don't recall now what it was as it was later replaced by something much better.
Walking with the dog on Thursday evening, I found some more suitable lines, and on Friday morning I was finally able to write two verses, each composed of twelve lines each. At this stage, the phrase 'The great escape' popped into my head and I was able to include this: the protagonist is going to make his (or her) escape from the dominant woman. The second verse was more 'physical', describing the escape, with lines like 'chipping at the stone' and 'Shoveling up the dirt'.
On Saturday morning, I wrote the final verse then started improving the lyrics, by changing words here and there, replacing lines and in one case even changing a rhyming line to a non-rhyming line as I had a better line. There's still one rhyming line that I would like to replace but I haven't found anything suitable yet ('And there are no bends').
When I started singing the words to the melody, I discovered that the tune was pitched too high, from B below middle C upto D, an octave above middle C. Lowering the tune by a tone (now A - C) made it easier to sing. When originally sequencing the song, I had included a middle section; frequently I do this without including a tune, trusting that a contrasting tune will pop up when I write the words. This did not happen this time, so I had to chop out the middle section. Then I discovered that the final bar before the removed section had an Ab chord whereas the next bar (the first bar of the third verse) had a C chord. I had to rework part of the instrumental break between the second and third verses; walking the dog helped me think of a possibility, but in the end it was easier than I thought.
So now I have the music track and I have the words. Despite the odd rhythm of seven beats in a bar, I found the song far from difficult to sing. Now I have to get used to the tune and the words, but that's not too difficult. I imagine that I'll record the first version on Friday, rerecording the vocal until it's good.
| Title | Tags | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 287 | Prague log #4 | Holiday, Prague | |
| 288 | Prague log #5 | Holiday, Prague | |
| 635 | More holiday | DBA, Statistics, Sandy Denny, Old recordings | |
| 1175 | Turnitin | DBA | |
| 1259 | Two important events | DBA, Health | |
| 1338 | Priority procedures cross referencer | Programming, Priority tips |
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