Voice Memo: Thank god
Something new for your ears, with a generous dose of thoughts on songwriting.
Hello lovely people, I hope September is treating you well and you’re enjoying soaking up the last of the Summer sun. I’m here with a voice memo of a song idea that’s been whirling around my head, as well as a few meandering thoughts on songwriting. Let’s dive in:
It occurred to me a little while ago that my acoustic guitar hasn’t been getting much love - it didn’t really on Safe Hands (that little strum part on Embers is IT) and it rarely comes with me when I play live at the minute - so I got all nostalgic and picked it up for the first time in ages a few weeks ago to noodle around, change the odd string to a different tuning (goodbye my beloved open D) and find my way to fall back in love with playing it again. I’m still a creature of habit when it comes to picking patterns and I anticipate that may not change much throughout my songwriting, but I landed on something that felt warm, comfortable and distinct from anything else I’ve written.
Whenever I write something now (and this has only really been an occurrence since writing for Safe Hands), I always think about the first few chords/notes at the beginning of whatever I’m writing and how people would respond to it if I played it live, for example, or they heard it on the radio for the first time. Whatever that feeling is, it’s a feeling I want to hold onto throughout the song and capture in the production. I may be waffling at this point and this might sound like gobbledygook, or maybe it all sounds completely obvious, but it’s something I’ve thought about recently and, honestly, I feel like I’ve cracked a code 😂
The voice note’s beginning is a little cringe, but also quite sweet and a true reflection of where I was when I put lyrics to this guitar and melody. It’s not very often I unveil these kind of moments with my songwriting and that’s why I love this little corner of the internet so much. I’m in the midst of a new chapter re: the cycle of being an artist (write, demo, record, release, promo, tour, repeat etc. - you know the drill), and it feels quite freeing just writing for the sake of writing again, without the question of where it belongs. Anyway, I’m definitely rambling now, it belongs to you now in the form of this little voice note and I hope you enjoy listening to it in its very early stages.