Making an album, part 8: Taking the scenic route

Like many music lovers of my vintage, I've spent the last six weeks or so listening to David Bowie CDs and trawling Youtube for clips, interviews and rarities. There is plenty I could say about how important Bowie was to me, but plenty of other folk have pontificated on that topic and I’m not in the mood to add to it. All I will say -for now- is that Bowie, an inspirational figure in life, has become an even more inspirational figure in death. The fact that he could produce interesting work as his life was ebbing away seems to be entirely in keeping with his status for my generation. If he can do all of the things that he did while knowing what he knew, then perhaps those of us who undertake artistic pursuits purely for pleasure should get our fingers out and get on with writing that book, painting that picture, making that film, or –in my case- recording that album.

A few months ago, having pulled together more than enough material for an album and having pretty much decided which tracks were going to make the final cut, I started to labour a bit over the lyrics for the four final songs. It was not so much a case of writer’s block, more a demonstration of the power of laziness to facilitate an extended pause for reflection. I had most of the instrumentation recorded for these tracks and had even put down some guide vocals, but I just felt that somehow I wasn’t in the right place to write the words or, indeed, finish the album. Needing to take a break from the task I had set myself, I embarked upon what I thought was a little detour. As a way of avoiding (or postponing) finishing off those last few songs, I started to record some instrumental pieces and, before too long, found myself absorbed in the process. This diversion into the instrumental domain extended to my listening habits and I wallowed once more in the beautiful lush soundscapes of artists like Jean-Michel Jarre, Kraftwerk, John Barry and Angelo Badalamenti. The touchstone, as ever, was Bowie’s ‘Low’ which –even 40 years on- still sounds like a work of art.

Compared with writing a song, working on an instrumental can be quite liberating. As I’ve stated previously, the songs on my album are all quite tastefully arranged and have all the building blocks of what a certain kind of music bore might call ‘proper’ song-writing. The instrumental, however, pays no mind to many of the rules that apply to the song and will often rely almost entirely on atmosphere and ambience. One piece, for instance, started with me finding a weird sound on a synthesiser and playing a constant distorted drone in A flat minor. No rhythm was involved and I didn’t move from the chord, because I had no sense that it had to go anywhere; the sheer noise of it just felt good. I added a simple string melody and saved it as ‘Not The Thing’ (just to give it a temporary name), because the feel reminded me of Ennio Morricone’s superb, eerie, minimalist soundtrack for John Carpenter’s classic movie. A couple of months down the line, that piece, based on little more than a crunchy, distorted tone, has turned into something quite powerful and evocative, a really fun piece of music to work on. Over several sessions with producer and engineer extraordinaire Eddie Macarthur, I’ve added various layers, melodies, synth parts and bits of treated electric guitar which, if you asked me to play again, would have me utterly flummoxed. I’d be unable to reproduce any of it, because I had no idea what I was playing and have no intention of ever trying to perform these pieces live. Morphing and squeezing the guitar through a variety of effects, I played by ear, riding the effect –as opposed to playing the part and adding effects later in the mix- and trying to respond instinctively to what the mood of the piece required.  

This is not something I normally do when I’m writing a song. Aware that the vocal is king and that a solid foundation must be in place, I will already have worked out the chords on acoustic guitar or piano. In song-writing mode, I’ll avoid jarring or clunky chord transitions, because I’m always thinking about what the vocal melody is going to be doing and what the lyrics is going to say; I’ll usually want to tell a story or make some observation on the human condition. When I’m recording an instrumental, all I want to do is make something that sounds good; this may seem like a banal observation, but I would regard it as a liberating statement of intent. The instrumental makes no statement other than: I’m here, I exist, I’m making this noise, while a song always has to have something to say, even if it’s just "I love you, baby" or "I’ve got a brand new combine harvester". My album of ‘proper’ songs requires a degree of personal exposition, but these mute atmospheric pieces allowed me to revel in the lack of any requirement to write lyrics. It is, I believe, this absence of ‘self’ that has made the instrumental music so liberating to work on; in that sense, it feels like a purer art form. 

As I developed more and more of these new pieces, unencumbered by any obligation to tell a story or make any particular statement, I soon found that I had accumulated enough material to produce at least another album. So successful and fulfilling has been this detour (although you may disagree if you listen to the tunes) that I now intend to complete an instrumental album at more or less the same time as the album of 'proper' songs. The name for this project is Analogue Hashtag and the working title for the album is ‘An accumulation of detail’. This is because, on several of the pieces, I have started with a relatively simple theme and added layer upon layer, counterpoint upon counterpoint, until the piece has swollen, wandered and (hopefully) soared. By the time five or six minutes have passed, the listener may have lost trace of the original riff, but it will still be there, a modest little motif still somehow carrying the accumulated weight of its melodic cousins.

The track I’m linking to below (Relentless) is fairly typical of the Analogue Hashtag oeuvre. As usual, it started with me playing around at home, doodling on the keyboard. Something about the simplicity of the riff and the insistent rhythm set me off and, thereafter, the piece pretty much wrote itself; all I had to do was keep driving it in the same direction. I know that repetitive pieces aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, but nothing is everyone’s cup of tea.

The point of this kind of music is to create a mood and to sit in that mood for a longer period than one might expect from a normal pop song. Working on these tracks has given me license to mess around a lot more with effects and treatments and to indulge a love for warm analogue synth sounds and atmospheric textures. Listen out for the ‘cut-up’ vocals layered across the landscape of this piece, sitting somewhere in the background like a not-so-distant memory. Later in the track, a lead vocal kicks in. The observant listener will notice that I’m not singing any particular words, but rather making sounds that -to me- felt like they would sit comfortably with the mood of the piece.  

A bit, in fact, like Bowie, on side two of ‘Low’.

Well … I can dream, can’t I?

Relentless

Bowie

As I was driving to work this morning, already gloomier than the gloomy sky, there was a point at which a crazy, fleeting thought suddenly became a hope.

That hope, not yet realising that it was quite silly, somehow fed on the crazy, fleeting thought. Enchanted, then intoxicated by each other, these giddy partners, gathering courage and impetus, flicked on a few lights and rang some bells along my neural pathways until -for somewhere between a millisecond and a microsecond- the crazy thought and the silly hope almost convinced me to believe that I was about to wake up. They almost convinced me to believe that I was not yet driving to work, but was about to wake up for the second time, about to wake into an ordinary gloomy day, a day in which I would not hear the news that my radio had already delivered. 

And, in that delirious little space between millisecond and microsecond, everything was OK.

Making an album, part 6: Vengeance (in E minor) will be mine

Have you ever been let down by a friend or a lover? Ever been betrayed or dumped for a younger, richer or more glamorous model? At some point in our lives, most of us will get ditched or double-crossed, pulverised or put down and the chances are that some of us will harbour dark thoughts of revenge. Harbouring those thoughts can be a frustrating way to pass the time, but if you’re a songwriter you can at least even things up a little by writing a revenge song. Your revenge song won’t quite make up for any slights you have suffered, but the process of writing it will be cathartic and, if you get lucky, it might even make you a few bob.

Well-known examples of revenge songs include Carly Simon’s ‘You’re so vain’ (which I think was probably about me), and ‘How do you sleep?’ which was John Lennon’s not-so-sneaky attempt at the character assassination of a fellow Beatle (nice work, John). ‘Goodbye Earl’ by The Dixie Chicks was an otherwise jolly country-pop hit which gleefully advocated the murder of a domestic abuser, while Elvis Costello launched a lucrative career on the back of a whole bunch of songs heavily seasoned with vengeful bitterness. 

Revenge songs, by their very nature, can get a bit ugly. Alanis Morrissette’s smash hit ‘You oughta know’ is a fine piece of music, but one can’t help but suspect that it represents six months of counselling distilled into four raging minutes of bombast. Addressing an unfaithful former lover, the lyric asks:

“Every time I scratch my nails down someone else's back
I hope you feel it ... well, can you feel it?” 

The answer is ‘probably not, Alanis’, but you do get the impression that she had to either write that song or go ahead and boil the ex-boyfriend’s bunny. 

In song-writing, as in life, I’m generally the sort of person who prefers to poke gentle fun rather than put the boot in, but the song I’ve linked to below (Angry Boy) does stray somewhat into revenge song territory. It was inspired by an awkward social encounter from about a year ago, when I was out having a few drinks in mixed company. During what I thought was a civilised and interesting discussion on the topic of Scottish independence, I was threatened by a middle-aged chap (who happened to be a member of the local arts community). When I say ‘threatened’ I mean that he actually wanted to hit me. From where I had been standing, I thought we were having a good old intellectual joust as he laid out the case for independence and I –from what was at the time an undecided position- batted back a few questions and concerns. Because I’m used to the company of people who like to discuss things without hitting other people, I had not picked up on the fact that my interlocutor was not enjoying the good old intellectual joust. Rather, he imagined that he was being deliberately wound up by the provocative wittering of an intellectual gadfly or, in his words, “a fucking pub troll”. In my experience, using the t-word is often a sign that someone doesn’t wish to engage in, or has already lost, an argument. Then he got right in my face with the ‘see you, Jimmy’ stare, which, although an authentic part of the Glasgow experience, is not one I’d necessarily recommend to visiting tourists. For all his ‘sensitive artist’ bona fides, the guy had lost the plot and was ready to knock me into the middle of next week. Only the intervention of a friend prevented an ugly scene which might have ended up with a late-night visit to Accident and Emergency. What with my pretty-boy looks and all, I can’t afford to take chances like that. 

As songwriters do, I stored the incident away for future consideration. What did it all mean? What had I done to provoke this sensitive fellow? Was it something I said, or something about my manner? Might I have done more to diffuse the situation? Did I really say something to offend him, or was he merely a jerk with a drink in him who didn’t like to be crossed in an argument? The evidence of the song reveals which option I went for.

The tune was one I had been playing around with for ages, while struggling to come up with a suitable lyric. Various drafts had withered on the vine as I grasped for a topic that would sit with the feel of the piece. The music always comes first, because I believe that there is no point in having good lyrics if the tune doesn’t cut the mustard. There are many classic pop songs that have great tunes and rubbish lyrics, but I can’t think of many acknowledged classics with rubbish tunes and great lyrics. When you live what, for shorthand purposes, I’ll describe as an ordinary settled life, finding interesting subject matter can be tricky. Lyrics written to reflect my day-to-day experiences might not necessarily interest the average listener. I suspect the market would be somewhere south of sluggish for songs with titles like ‘Do we need milk?’ or ‘Go and tidy your room, madam!’ Having said that, however, perhaps some readers will identify with my heartfelt power ballad ‘Broken photocopier blues’.

It’s worth taking your time with the words, because the difference between dreary lyrics (for example, pretty much anything by Oasis) and excellent lyrics (for example, pretty much anything by Joni Mitchell) is roughly equivalent to the difference between typing and writing. Once I’ve identified a theme and a title, the hardest part is coming up with a couple of lines that I like, signature lines that will encode the lyrical DNA of the song. Once those words are in place, I can usually work around them and start to embellish things reasonably quickly. In this case, I knew that I was going to write about the motivations of that mad guy in the pub, so the key words formed the opening line of the song:

“You don’t want to hear, you just want to bend somebody’s ear.”

Everything else flowed from that point. Once I got inside the mind of the character, it was relatively easy to lay out the possible and probable reasons for his behaviour. By the time the process was finished, I had accumulated enough material to make it a matter of what to leave out, not what to force in. To score an extra bonus song-writing point, I decided to present some of his anger issues in list form during the middle eight. Lists in songs, when done well, always impress me. Apart from anything else, it shows that the writer has given the words a little bit of thought, instead of just looking for things that rhyme, although REM’s impenetrable ‘It’s the end of the world as we know it (and I feel fine)’ might just be an exception to that rule.

Perhaps the most famous example of a list song is ‘My favourite things’ by Rodgers and Hammerstein:   

“Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woollen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things”

‘Let’s call the whole thing off’ by George and Ira Gershwin is another refined example of the genre, while Bob Dylan’s ‘A hard rain’s gonna fall’, written -according to legend- during the Cuban missile crisis, is said to be a compilation of the first lines of all the songs he didn’t think he’d ever get to write. A less portentous list appears on ‘Hello’, the 1990 hit by The Beloved, which features a roll call of various A, B and C-list celebrities. I salute any writer with the chutzpah to include the line:

"Sir Bufton Tufton, Jean Paul Sartre, Zippy, Bungle and Jeffrey Archer"

But I digress.

The list in the middle eight of my song lays out some of the things that might grind the gears of an angry man of a certain age:  

"You’re angry if they don’t, angry if they do, angry when they don’t think the same as you. You're angry with your boss, angry with your car, angry at the queue waiting at the bar.”

I’m going to write some other time about walking in the footsteps of my musical heroes, but it’s clear from the staccato delivery of the ‘angry’ list that this track is influenced by David Bowie. This impression is emphasised by some excellent ‘Scary Monsters’-style guitar provided by my chum Alan Robertson. Alan has been contributing to the album through the miracle of digital file transfer. The way it works is that I send him a copy of the track at a relatively early stage of its development and he adds loads of stuff at his home studio before emailing it back to me. He gives me lots of options, which is how I like it. Again, I prefer the mixing process to be more about what to leave out than what to put in; when it comes to selecting guitar or keyboard parts, my indecision is usually final. Fraser Sneddon’s bass, as ever, provides fluidity and heft, reminding me how lucky I am to know such talented musicians, people with the ability to bring my basis ideas to life.  

They say that revenge is a dish best served cold, but this particular dish will probably never be served; it's highly unlikely that the bloke in the pub will ever hear my song.

Now that I think about it, maybe I should have just punched him in the mouth.

Angry Boy

                                           

This is a job for … Synth-Rock Pedantic Man!

After many years of living a double life, I have decided that it is time for me to reveal my secret identity as one of the lesser-known super heroes. Just as Batman is obliged to respond whenever the authorities beam that big bat-sign up into the night skies of Gotham City, so it is my sacred duty as Synth-Rock Pedantic Man to respond whenever someone exhibits a sloppy recollection of pop trivia. For years I have watched over the planet, correcting minor factual errors whenever a friend, acquaintance or passing stranger has carelessly demonstrated a less-than-encyclopaedic knowledge of popular music.
In my relentless battle against the forces of inexactitude, I have lost count of the number of times that I have tackled misconceptions, slapdash inaccuracies, oversights and false assertions about which year such-and-such a song was a hit for so-and-so.

Let me explain how it works.

Whenever someone says something ridiculous like: "My favourite 80s track is 'Our friend’s electric' by Gary Newman", I am instantly transformed into Synth-Rock Pedantic Man and will fearlessly point out that:

"Actually, that track was released under the band name 'Tubeway Army'. And the title of the song is a question -the question being Are ‘friends’ electric?- because he’s singing about having a relationship with an artificial human. That’s why ‘friends’ is in inverted commas. And it's Gary 'Numan', not 'Newman'. And it’s not from the 1980s; the track actually came out in 1979."

The role of Synth-Rock Pedantic Man demands eternal vigilance because, in my world, danger is ever-present. You may find this hard to believe, but there are people who literally don’t know the difference between Depeche Mode and the Human League, or who are unaware that Ultravox -before Midge Ure joined the band- had released three excellent albums, the first two of which were credited to Ultravox! That exclamation mark, incidentally, was said to be a tribute to the German band Neu! It wasn’t that common at the time, but many other bands since then have used the exclamation mark in their name: Wham! The Go! Team and Panic! At the Disco, to name but three.

I will admit to having had some scary moments. I’ve lost count, for instance, of the number of times I’ve tangled with folk who didn’t know that Duran Duran were named after a character in a science-fiction film. I’ll wager that some among you couldn’t even name that film. It was, of course, ‘Barbarella’, the French-Italian kitsch classic from 1968, starring Jane Fonda and directed by her husband of the time, Roger Vadim. Although, strictly speaking, Duran Duran only based their name on the character; he was actually called ‘Durand Durand’ (and was played by the Irish actor Milo O’Shea).

It is impossible to predict when my super-powers might be called for. Only the other day, I over-heard this remark during a conversation between two ruffians on the train: "I quite like Craft Work. What was that one they sang about supermodels? And that other one … 'Here comes the rain again' … that was them wasn't it?"

My relentless pursuit of veracity trumps any trivial concerns I might have about my personal safety, so I leaned across the isle and said, calmly:

“I think you’ll find that ‘Here comes the rain again’ was by Eurythmics (often mistakenly called The Eurythmics, but the definite article doesn’t actually appear in their name). And it’s not Craft Work, but Kraftwerk, which is German for ‘power plant’ or ‘power station’. And the song in question was called ‘The Model’, which, curiously enough, was not actually a hit when the ‘Man Machine’ album (from which it came) was released in 1978. It was included as the b-side of the ‘Computer Love’ single in 1981, but it got so much radio play that the record company re-released it –against the wishes of the band- and it got to number one early in 1982, nearly four years after it first appeared on an album.”

I will not repeat the torrent of foul language I had to endure at that point; I’m not looking for your sympathy. As one of the lesser-known super-heroes, I have had to develop a flinty immunity to public scorn. It is enough for me to know, dear reader, that my work gets done and that the planet is safe from sloppiness, hazy recollection and terminological inexactitude. At least until the next time.

But alas, this unstinting devotion to duty comes at a heavy personal cost. Not only have I never been thanked for my work; I have not been invited to a social gathering of any kind since 1997. Nevertheless, I am resolved to carry on with my selfless task. Only when the curse of sloppiness of recollection has finally been eliminated will I have cause to celebrate.

And ‘Celebrate’, funnily enough, was a single released by the Simple Minds in 1980. The band got their name from a line in the David Bowie song ‘The Jean Genie’ (the title of which was said to have been a punning nod to the controversial French writer and political activist Jean Genet). In their early days, Simple Minds were known as Johnny and the Self-abusers.