Shifting Mirrors Teaser: Marooned

All seems fair in love and war, but the minute you’re on the short end, all you feel is the agony of being trapped on an island in the middle of an endless sea, where nobody can hear you…

To be honest, I never knew why I wrote this.  The lyric popped in my head years back and was worked out after I had recorded a fairly long and epic demo called ‘Below The Belly of the Beast’. I quickly moved on writing different tunes, but when revisiting this project for its penultimate recording, I found that the song had held itself adrift, not unlike a man clutching tightly to the driftwood in order not to drown. Rewriting did commence, but not as a heavily as I did with ‘Driving With Open Eyes’. I think I only added a bit of lyrics that comes after the instrumental break in the middle of the song. Lyrically, this is where we feel we’re taken to when a relationship bites the dust in a fairly spectacular way.
Songwise, this track shifts from a pop tune, to a full blown progressive rock theme in the instrumental middle part, with several sections and several time signatures and tempo changes. The vocals come back at the end when the whole song just explodes into the fairly bombastic tune. One of my favorites, truth be told!

—–

Marooned ( R.d.G)

Please take my hand
and don’t let me fall
I feel so lost now
can’t take another hit at all

I’ve watched you running
running from me
was there no other way
a way for you to see

( Chorus)
I feel marooned
Standing on the edges of the threshold
I am marooned
Washed upon a lonely shore
Too long forgotten to be remembered anymore

can’t you hear what I’m saying
Can’t you hear me at all
I feel I’m losing you
I feel I’m beginning to fall

I see you standing at the brink
your back towards me now
Would you please talk to me
Don’t force me to take a bow

( Chorus)

( Instrumental)

Drawing lines in the sand
with feet here in the water
Trying to find words to say
but knowing I would only falter

Explaining the correctness
silent politics to none at all
You foil my plans to get you back
Please hear my call

I moved away into the fog
to see you dancing into shifting mirrors…

( Repeat to fade)

Shifting Mirrors Teaser: Driving With Open Eyes

Nobody is objective when they face their darkest issues, yet at the same time deep down we know something’s wrong. We only look away because we’re afraid of what we’ll see, the darkness staring right back at us.

Originally known as ‘Life As We Know It’, when I first wrote this song, the issue that I had with it was that although it was a great track, it lacked spirit. Still, it was the first song I ever recorded, even in a professional studio. But over the years I grew tired of the song missing something, so after taking to my pen, I changed most of the layout and instead of a steady rock tune ( with blues undertones), the song went into this guitar driven new wave-ish track with prog influences. Although the song is in 4/4, the guitars and keyboards life the melody up, with the vocals sounding quite haunting. Lyrically, it’s about knowing that whatever you’re doing is wrong; and still you carry on, because it’s all you know to do…

—–
Driving With Open Eyes ( R.d.G)

Down the road there’s nothing new
Objects sliding into view
Never sure if you’ll arrive
So you shift straight into overdrive

Punching holes here in the sky
But never really knowing why
While all this time you remain unheard
In a world that seems so absurd

(Chorus)
And here along the ride
Pretending the dig yields only surprise
It shows you the senselessness
When you’re driving with open eyes

This innocence is nothing new
As you’re sliding right there past the pew
All that’s distant rushes past
You’ve been too slow, the die is cast

Turning tables to make you see
That one and one too much make three
Here’s hoping that you’ll trust the guide
Instead of all the times you defied

(Chorus)
Here out in the open
weaving tales out of all the lies
It shows you the senselessness
Of driving with open eyes

(Chorus to fade)

… And then it hit me…

It’s quite funny that, although I’ve been writing my own songs for years now, I’m still amazed at how easy the new songs are coming together that I have been working on for Sylvium.

‘Coraline’ is proving the most difficult one of all and not because of the time signatures. The song has been experiencing a lot of trimming lately, as the only bit remaining is the beginning of the song, the rest has been removed ( but not deleted as they are great songs/bit in their own right).
Whereas the song wasn’t a collection wibbly wobbly timey wimey solo’s and odd time and tempo changes, it’s now been changed from a body of work spanning around 9 minutes to a much more precise song with its verses in 11/8 and the chorus in 6/8.  Although the verses are quite poppy, the chorus is where the power lies. The tuning of this song was changed from Drop D to Drop C, not because I wanted to sound all death metal like, but because it sounded amazing with clean sounds. If anything at all, it matured the song. I’m still due to write a bridge for this track, I’m pretty sure that’ll work out over the coming days!

‘Tool(s)’ is the heavy metal middle 8 section that was salvaged from ‘Coraline’ which will be worked out for something else. It’s an almost military rhythmic track in 7/8 with a harsh ending. So far, I’m liking it!

‘Bridge Burning’ is a funky rock tune in 6/8 I tried to add to ‘Coraline’ but it never really gelled for me. So right now, I’m looking as to where I would use such a piece. It’s the most Ghost-like tune I’ve got out of the bunch I wrote, so I might bag it for myself!

‘Lilypad’ is so far the quietest thing I’ve written in a while. Clean guitars with massive delays and some gentle keyboards going with it. Not sure where this track is going, to be honest, but it is sounding very good to me!

‘Wrong Side of the Reel’ is a new track which I began writing when the delay effect I had added to a specific guitarsound began to feedback. So far it’s almost like ambient space rock.

Apart from these songs, is a stack of riffs I have which I will figure out in due time once these tracks have been demo’ed. Given I’m going to follow a course on how to work with Cubase ( as I have worked in the past with a horrible DAW that shall remain unnamed) I should have demo’s soon! Exciting days are ahead! 🙂

I’ll be away for the holidays, spending it with my lovely girlfriend and our cat. For now, I wish you all a merry and happy christmas!

Inspiration Bug And How NOT to repel it…

It’s been quite a busy time for me, job hunting, family related issues and whatnot and, of course, songwriting. Especially the latter since a couple of days.

After finishing up on writing the songs for ‘Shifting Mirrors’, I encountered a dry season with regards to songwriting and simply just sat back and decided to wait for it to return. It always did before whenever dry season would come in sight. That was at the end of 2011.

*cricket noise*

Not counting the lyrics I wrote for Sylvium’s “The Gift of Anxiety’, that’s a lot of work I didn’t do. As for the songs that I wrote for Nur Amata when I joined them early 2012, those had already been written prior to me joining the band. So all in all, it was quite a bit of a quiet period. Truth be told, I didn’t really mind it, I just had other things to take care of back then. Besides, I find that rushing any songwriting that I do screws over the song.

Yet now, I am staring at a notebook with scribblings and scratchings not unlike a painting in the making, be it of course not a visual spectacle but one that will hopefully be enjoyable to your ears.
The first song is one I’ve been working on for Sylvium and am quite badly due to record/work out, as it’s a bit fragmented so far with regards to the pieces. A song in Drop D tuning with 4/4, 6/8, 7/8 and 11/8 time signatures. No lyrics so far, just a fairly mad piece of music that goes by the working title of ‘Coraline’. Incidently, I have never been able to finish a piece of work by Neil Gaiman due to lack of time ( and also because I still have at least thirty odd books or so to finish before I begin new ones, so no bickering! 😉 )
The second song is a piece for Nur Amata that I worked out in Drop G tuning ( after having found out I was mistakenly calling that Drop A tuning). Although the strings on the guitar were quite floppy, I did enjoy playing it. However, the tuning is now back to standard E in 6/8 as it made playing it a whole lot easier and sounded better than having a string sounding floppy ( if that is a proper term for describing strings not wound tight enough!). The lyrics I have so far are only scribbles that seemed to be about disappointment, so the working title for now  is ‘Hollow’.
The third and final song is another piece for Nur Amata revolving more around a standard E tuning ( although I could play it on Drop D as well I found out later) in 4/4. Much more poprock than anything else I’ve written, but with guitar sounds I normally don’t use for Ghost. I have no lyrics for it yet, but found myself mumbling incoherently about driving while playing the bridge part, so it’s working title for now is ‘Keep Driving’. 😛

So right now, I’m just thrilled this has worked out. I’ll work out recordings later this week or perhaps next week if time proves too elusive ( which it very well may be!). There are band rehearsals later this week, so at least I’ll be able to play them some things on guitar/synthesizer and perhaps work out these songs even better. Given that Nur Amata is in full writing mode with several songs, I’m psyched!