What to when there’s nothing to do. I suppose I could write a song.
When people ask me if I write the lyrics first or the music I will answer “yes”, but ‘yes’ doesn’t really tell the story. Sometimes I write some lyrics and then find some chord progressions and work out a melody. Other times I’ve got a bit of melody and need to wait for some words to fit. And sometimes the two happen simultaneously. But invariably the melody will lead to changes in the lyrics and vice versa. Often the process takes place over such a long time that it’s hard to work out what came first.
I’ve got a few songs that I sat down and simply wrote. Mostly they develop over time. Appreciation took quite a while.
At first it was a chord progression. It sounded good and I kept playing it. Little by little a bit of melody occurred to me. Then, walking on a street in Alice Springs, the first line occurred to me. Then I had a clue – this was a song about toxic busy-ness. I’ve always kept myself busy. There’s never enough time to do all the things I want to do or commit to do. Somehow most things get done, but in doing it all I’ve missed a lot. This is a song about a different possibility.
The chords, melody and lyrics of Appreciation are different to anything else I’ve ever done. When I post a song on SoundCloud or BandCamp they always ask me what genres the song falls into. I usually don’t know. I think I called Appreciation “Pop”, but that doesn’t feel quite right. I only arrived at it by identifying what genres it isn’t. Any suggestions?
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I had some feedback about this song. One was a from a friend. She didn’t like the song much, and the singing was even flat in parts. So I listened again and discovered she was correct. I’ve now reworked the vocal and hopefully it’s more in tune. To my ears it’s better – hopefully it’s in tune.
The second bit of feedback was from a drummer friend of mine. He said that the drumming was extremely busy – and it hurt the track. I had another look and found that I’d inadvertently ran two different drum tracks on top of one another. Neither track was too busy to my ear, but the two together were over the top. I’ve cleaned that up but it still sounded a bit like drums being very busy. It turned out that it was the guitar strumming that seemed to work with the drums to create that effect. I turned the guitar down and applied a bit of reverb to it and hopefully got the balance right.
I’m fond of this track. I keep working on it in hopes of one day getting it right.
Appreciation
Verse 1:
I’ve got a little bit of time on my hands
Quite unexpected not a part of my plans
But just the same I’ve got nothing to do today
It’s the kind of nothing that can fill all the space
That’s always been here surrounding this place
So full of busy that is constantly in my way
Chorus 1:
I could have started on a project or two
There were a million things that I could do
Instead I stumbled into something new… appreciation
Verse 2:
Look at the sky and there sits the moon
And wonder how it found its way back so soon
It’s like its hardly even been away
I always knew there were stars in the sky
Tiny holes in the curtain- they’re hard to deny
I didn’t notice – there was always something in the way
Chorus 2:
How could I have missed it, it was everywhere
I didn’t see didn’t let myself care
But something stopped me – i discovered something rare … appreciation
Bridge:
In these quiet moments i wonder what’s true
Exploring the magic of nothing to do
It seems to me when I let myself be
I might dicover something new .. appreciation
Verse 3:
I can’t explain how my life got this way
Why do i fill every moment every day
Life so very full there’s not enough room for me
When i finally saw the value of slow
The value of finally having nowhere to go
I got a glimpse of parts of life i could never see
Chorus 3:
Dont get me wrong i like the life that i’ve got
But it wouldn’t hurt in fact it might help a lot
If Once in a while i opened my eye to see .. appreciation
Outro:
I’ve got a little bit of time on my hands
Quite unexpected not a part of my plans
But just the same I’ve got nothing to do
Oh… I got nothing to do
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