From Seed To Sprout To Song

I can sit down and put a pen to paper, I can strum my guitar and listen for the melody, I can combine both to create a song, but what does it take to get a song out of my living room and into yours?

On that fateful afternoon, when SIREN was born, I sent the rough draft/Iphone recording to a couple of trusted people straight away and was, surprisingly, told that it didn’t suit to them. Not sure why, but the negative feedback made me want to work at it even harder, to get to know it even better. That I did, and eventually, brought it to the stage with me, observing the audiences reaction. It always delighted me (delights me!) to sing this song, because it evokes certain reactions in people which I do not get from some of my other songs. Reaction, to me, is the most important thing! Good or bad, if it makes you FEEL something, then I am doing something right.

Eventually I took SIREN into the studio at BIG MUDDY in Carleton Place, Ontario, Canada with Brock Zeman (Brock produced my last full length record CHAMELEON in 2015.) Along with Brock’s instrumental skills, I invited Blair Hogan to play whatever he felt like playing and the song became almost what it is today. I had to re record my vocals, as the ghost vocals just didn’t cut it! They rarely do. What are ghost vocals, you ask? When you take a song into the studio (for others to play on) you have to record yourself playing it to a click track, so it does not veer out of time, no beats missed, so everyone can play along also not missing a beat. You can imagine having a “tick tick tick tick” in your ears while are singing can be a little annoying, and singing, annoyed, usually doesn’t come out so nice, so yeah, I had to re record my vocals, this time singing along to the fully produced version. Thanks to Christina Rieder for our vocal recording session. Then the song had to be sent to a mixing engineer, basically a new set of ears, to make sure it all sounded “right.” Not everyone can be trusted to do such a thing, but after working with Steve Foley of Audio Valley Recording Studios for my 2015 record, I knew I could trust his ears, and I was correct! Thanks Steve, I LOVE your ears! After mixing, I had to send it to get mastered. Some might compare mastering to a bowl of Spaghetti. The noodles and sauce are great, but that melted cheese on top just adds to it and makes it that much yummier (vegan or not!) Enter Jason Fee of Conduction Mastering, with those finishing touches and PRESTO! The song is ready.

I wanted to get a lyric video for the song before it’s release, since people (myself included) like to watch and listen so I headed over to FIVERR where I found Youssef from Egypt. And please, do not be mistaken, you think that you can buy a video for a fiver, try multiplying that by about 100 and you might be closer to the truth. Anyway, talk about having FAITH in a stranger. Well, it turned out he really liked the song and did a pretty good job at the animated lyric video. He also put together a forty second teaser for me, which you can watch HERE.

I sent the song over to INDIEPOOL a small Canadian distribution company, and we chose it’s release date for FRIDAY MAY 22nd. This is when this little song I wrote in a two hundred year old farmhouse will be released into the world to all the major music platforms.

So when they say it takes a village to raise a song? They are right.

Birth of a Song

There are over a billion scraps of paper, hiding in various corners, under couch cushions, in drawers and jeans pockets, showing in plain sight on dresser tops, change bowls and dash boards. These various little notes may contain a prophetic lyric that could change your world, or they could stay crumpled forever; these are the poetic scraps that we song-writers collect over the course of our life-times. "You never knows" just sitting there, folded waiting for the perfect melody.

Some_notes_a_book_and_a_guitar

Who knows if some of these notes will ever be read again, or used. How many notebooks can one person have anyway? There are notebooks in every corner of my house, and scraps of paper with dreams and ideas in most of the bags I own,  perhaps they are there for when lyrics come no more. Maybe the act of writing, is in and of itself the only point. To use or not to use, might not be the question at all, but rather to write to write and to write some more.

In times of technology, like today, an Iphone is very handy, when the combination of pen, paper and or napkin can not be found. Again, my notes section is filled to the brim with lyrical sentiments, and the recording device has at least a hundred started musical ideas. Some days when I am on a train to the next performance I just listen to the songs, erasing ones that have no real effect on me. So many ideas deleted without another moment of thought. On the rare occasion that I find something that I deem true and worthy, I will sit with it and my guitar and work it out. Mostly though, I sit with my guitar and a brand new song is born. from scratch, with no help from torn up pieces of paper or half ideas kept hidden in a tiny machine.

Lindsay_and_her_guitar

One of the most common of questions for a song-writer is "What comes first, the melody or the lyrics?" or "How do you write a song?" Most would agree that when a song comes, it usually comes in one long whoosh, from a magical place unknown. To be sure, there is no absolute way to compose a piece of music, there is no perfect equation that will work every time. Some songs come in moments, and some take hours, months even, to "complete." I put complete in quotes because every song can be changed up a bit. Perhaps one time you start out with the first verse, sometimes it feels better to start out with the Chorus. One band will add a catchy keyboard riff in the middle 8 (or bridge)  and another might replace the keys with mandolin, changing the sound entirely. Of course we song-writer's do have certain styles, but again nothing is 100%, so where I usually add a bridge (or middle 8) in a song, I do not always find the perfect spot for one. And that is okay.

Some years ago, I had the rarity of meeting Bono of the band "U2" in Ireland, at a hotel in the middle of nowhere, where he was attending a friends wedding. We talked about music, I had only just written and recorded my very first song and conveniently had it with me, to share. He was very kind and gave me a moment of his time and a few words of advice (which I had asked for.) One thing that always stuck with me was that the bridge of a song should stand out apart from the song and that it should actually be the best part of the song, even better than the chorus. So yeah, I really like to add one, but I always have his words in the back of my mind. If I can not find something extra-ordinary, I will not add one at all. 

Which brings me to my next point... Co-Writing a song can also be an amazing experience. I highly recommend getting out there and finding someone to write with. Two heads are better then one in most cases, so if the opportunity comes up to do this, I encourage you to do it! Brock Zeman and I wrote this song "Ships" together and it could be the most universally liked song that I have ever performed. It was a great writing session with Brock and way easier than I had ever thought it would be.

We lost a troubadour singer & song-writer on the weekend, Ron Hynes from Newfoundland, Canada. He was also called "Man of a Thousand Songs." And what a writer indeed. I remember playing on the same stage as Ron, at The Newfoundland Folk Festival, as part of a song-writers circle...I mean how lucky could a girl be, sharing a stage with a legend like himself. It was sad news for many people out there, who have all lived lives to the soundtrack of Ron's music. Most would know him for "Sonny's Dream." It had been months since I wrote a full song, some might say writer's block, but I am not so sure... In any case, I will leave you all with my new song, a tribute to Ron. "The Likes of You." Ron, I thank you.