The Evolution Of A Song

A show in Oakland May 11, plus how my new single, Hope You Know It, went through some...phases.

Special announcement: I have a show in Oakland on May 11! Would love to see any of you Californians in the area. Click the image below or right here for info and tickets. (and feel free to let a friend know who lives nearby if you think they might be interested!)

Hope You Know It started out as a letter from love to a child in my life who had a grip on my heart from moment one of meeting them. As so many songs tend to do for whatever reason, it evolved into being a love letter to my own inner child too. I hope it can also be a reminder to anyone who needs to remember how loved and lovable they really are, in and amongst whatever pain or hardship they may be experiencing. 

This song started out quite somber and slow at first. I even had a recording of rain in the background of the first demo, which consisted of just a gently pulsing, warm square synth underscoring the reflective verse lyric. There was definitely a seed of something striking in the idea, something that pulled at my heart strings. When Jeremi and I talked about it he wondered if perhaps the song could potentially be really encouraging, and not quite so…melancholic. He encouraged me to think about finding a way to bring it somewhere cheering, brightening, uplifting, while still upholding the meaning and tenderness of the original idea.

At first this stumped me, to be honest. I had gotten so attached to the demo of the little bit of the song I’d written (a classic artist’s sin, of which I am far too often guilty) that I struggled to reimagine it, even though I felt he was right on as far as his instincts about what the song could become. I didn’t want someone to listen to it and feel sadder—rather, I hoped they’d feel affirmed and seen. Don’t get me wrong, there is 1000% a place for songs like that, but this one? I wanted it to be something that would make someone feel like they’d just been given a long hug, not a push downward on the head into the mud.

Well, I’m not sure if what I did next makes me more of an idiot or a genius but I went on Splice (an app for finding drum samples and loops and all kinds of random production sh*t) and found an afrobeats loop and re-situated the song over it, which inspired the writing very differently from there. It didn’t make sense at all, but all of a sudden I could imagine the melodies in a new way. The original had kind of felt statically low energy, gentle and contemplative the entire way through—now, I could see color and motion and expansion.

However, taking an afrobeats loop and slapping it under a song that wasn’t written in that rhythm or from that musical perspective sounded corny as hell, and the beat really made next to no sense with the phrasing/melodies of the song. So, when it was time to produce it, we started from zero on the rhythm. It was all part of the process, though. It helped me hear the song differently. :) 

There were about fifty steps between that point in the process and where the song ended up, Sometimes that’s how it goes. If I have any encouragement for you writers out there, it’s a cliché but it’s become trite for a reason: be willing to kill your baby. Sometimes ideas need to be iterated and reiterated before they reach their full potential. I really hope you enjoy the song, and there is more to come very very soon!

Have a lovely week,

xo

Audrey