Week #4 of  Stories of the Sound of the Beat.

When I wrote 'Oh my love', it was a solo piano song. The song was very loaded, lyricwise (more about that later) and it needed some more melodies other than the piano and lead vocal to ‘clear the air’.

On the first demo I recorded of it, I kind of set the tone  (oooh, I love how that metaphore fits here…).
I added an acoustic guitar and the backing vocal tracks. For the bridge I chose a keyboard sound that sparkled a little more, but the weary chords kind of balanced the sparkles and the heavy mood. Yes, Dminor (the ground chord in the bridge) is by far one of the weariest chords in the book, in my opinion at least.

As the song builds up towards the last verse and chorus, I knew it would need the backup of drums and bass. So that’s what we did in the studio. We recorded the song as an acoustic 'powerballad' in which there would and could not be a single electric guitar. Because I felt that would have been too much. It’s a thin line between a powerballad and a Scorpions song, so I decided to stay far far away from that thin line…
(Don't get me wrong, there is a time and a place for 'The wind of change' but it wasn't on my record...)
 The only real power in the outro comes mostly from the vocal parts anyway. And that’s just fine, as far as I’m concerned.

Now, the lyric. 
It is in fact a very melancholic song. Not the most cheerful on the record. Actually one of the saddest songs I’ve ever written.  I’ve doubted if I should tell you the true story behind this song, because it might take away the mystery. Many people might think this is a song based on a true story, something that happened in my own life maybe, or to someone I knew. It couldn’t be further from the truth.

As a songwriter, I get inspired by stories. Mostly things happening in my own life or in the lives of those close to me. But every so often I get inspired by things I read in newspapers or in books, or by things I hear on the radio or see on tv. This song is very heavily inspired by something I saw on television. In a fictional tvshow actually.

Yes, it’s true. I’m television lover. I love television series. I love criminal shows, I love science fiction, I love political series, I love medical shows.  And though it may not be considered ‘cool’ by some musicians to openly admit to my love for popular tv culture, I really don’t care. I love it! (in an Icona Pop kind of way :-))

This song in particular was inspired by a story line in the ever so popular ‘Grey’s Anatomy’, the medical drama that the world (including me) cannot seem to get enough of. You can give me some McDreamy, McSteamy (may their perfect haircuts rest in peace in tv-heaven), Twisted Sisters, Calzona, Jolex or Japril any day of the week.

For all you Grey’s lovers out there, the Calzona-aircrash-aftermath was the direct inspiration for this song. For the 'I don't know what you're referring to' - people out there. Two lovers are almost literally ripped apart by the devastating greatness of what they have experienced, an air crash. Of course I kind of went my own way with it whilst writing the words. I didn’t want to be too exact. I never am in songs, I take a story and then I run away with it and make it my own. Sometimes that also creates some distance when lyrics are a bit more personal. And remaining vague also takes away some banality.

As you read the lyric, you may get the impression that it is a dialogue. And it kind of is, in a way. Both sides of the story are told, although maybe not completely or exhaustively. I deliberately did not specify who says  what nor did I use any punctuation because you would get a duet-feeling, and I didn’t want that.
It’s also not important which words are said out loud by which character in the story and which ones are only in the mind.  It’s only in the outro that the two voices come together.

'Oh my Love' is a song about something so big, so traumatising, so heavy on the heart that it’s almost impossible to keep the love alive, to survive as a couple. Towards the end, one of the characters still has hope, and almost begs for the other to not leave yet. To keep trying. To not give up the fight.
And that’s where the song ends. The answer of the other character is not revealed. In the tv show it is, but by the end of the song, I do feel like it’s not about those specific characters anymore. They became someone else. Who’s to say how or when the songcharacters’ story end? Nobody knows where they might end up... (;-)

Lyrics here

Listen here

Credits:
Marjan Debaene: Lead and backing vocals, piano and keyboards, percussion
Alex Brackx: Acoustic guitar
Bert Embrechts: Fretless bass guitar
Eric Bosteels: Drums

Ok, you know the drill. Another tuesday, another story...
Today I will tell you the tale of the oldest song on the record.

Once upon a time, in a galaxy far far away,  I was a student in Leuven and in between records. Ok, so this may not start out as your typical fairy tale, but for the song 'I want it all back' there sure was a fairy tale ending in the making, even though I didn't know it back then in 1997 or 1998. 
It must have been around that time, anyway.
I had released my first record, 'Growing Pains'(1996), a collection of songs I had written between the age of 12 and 16. After the release, I had been playing a great amount of concerts around Belgium and Holland while also trying to be a thriving student.... Well, that didn't work. The student part anyway, the concert part was great. I loved it. It gave me energy. It gave me air. It gave me life.  But as everything, also a tour must come to an end eventually. And then it hits you. Hard. The silence. 

So there I was. Starting a new university year, as a future art historian, I might add. I didn't know right there and then that I would actually graduate with flying colours and would be celebrating my ten year anniversary next year working at one of the coolest and boldest museums this side of the Channel. But that's another story...
For a while, I reveled in being a student, studying art, soon developing an endless love for the Middle Ages. 
But, somehow, you can take the girl off of the stage, but not the stage out of the girl...So soon, I developed a serious case of concertitis. A real and severe aching in the deepest part of your musical heart, an itch to perform and sing music in front of a crowd. 
And I started writing songs again, while feeling the pressure of the 'second album'. The song 'I want it all back' was written at that time. I loved it instantly. The lyric was so 'me', and the melody was one I could really 'sing'.  But.... it didn't work. Somehow, it didn't fit the list of songs that was selected for my second record 'Humanoid'. 

Time went by, 'Humanoid' (1999) was released, concerts were played. Tours ended and the song just lay there, on the shelf. After 'Humanoid', I studied some more (yadayadayada) and felt some more itching and aching for playing. 
I also did not have a record deal anymore since my record company ceased to exist and my distribution company went bankrupt a few month after the album was released (yeah, my album sales didn't go through the roof...) So it hit me twice. And even harder than the first time. It kicked me to ground. I didn't even want to be a musician anymore. But I still was. I will always be. I realised as long I had songs and music in me, I would be doomed (and blessed) to stay a musician forever. (aww... can you hear the violins too? seriously, I hear them. All the time ;-))

So I picked myself off from the ground, wiped my knees and started writing again, and recorded my EP 'Up all night' (2001). And started over as an indie artist. Time sneaks up on you, and I tried to read and learn everything there was to know about being an independent artist. I also wrote and wrote and wrote. I finally had the perfect list of songs for my next album 'Wolfish Times' (2006). But, you can guess, 'I want it all back' didn't fit. Didn't work. Didn't make the cut. Again. 

After that I kind of gave up on the song for years. You can't keep beating a dead horse, right?
Time was a serious bitch after that. It went by so fast. I started working in said cool museum and soon was swamped in museumstuff. I started writing for the next record around 2007, 2008 and already recorded a first song in 2009 ('Hoping for a miracle') but I didn't find the time, or the money to record and release my newest record 'The sound of the beat' until 2014.  I had a heap of songs ready and made a very strict selection. This album would be a coherent one.

And then, just when I stopped looking, I found it again. There it was, on the shelf, the lyric to 'I want it all back'. I still knew the melody and chords by heart, as if I had just written it the day before. I decided to take a chance and record a demo for it. I started with the bassline, oddly enough. I like playing bass. I love it. So I started working on it. Because I started with the bass, I guess I changed the groove of the song and it moved away from the typical 'depressed young songwriter girl with acoustic guitar'-song and became something more, something greater. Suddenly  I injected a sort of Bruce Springsteen meets Anouk meets Melissa Etheridge meets Texas kind of drive in the song. After a few hours, I played it back and I liked it. Instantly really really liked it. Goosebumps kind of liked it. So, there it was. The illegitimate child, hidden in a backroom for years, suddenly standing in the light and shining! And I realised it wasn't the song that wasn't ready or good enough for so long, it was me... I needed those 15 or 16 years to come to terms with it. 

The rest of the story is pretty straight forward. We recorded the song almost exactly as I arranged it in the demo (bassline, riffs, backing vocals,...), as a classic rock combo (drums, bass, guitars, piano, vocals). At first, I did have an awesome idea to use a horn section in the bridge (I recorded it on the demo) but it turned out it really wasn't that awesome after all, so we skipped the horn-idea. It would have been too much. Trust me...
I did keep the horn-melody and changed it to a string part. I also added a twin piano part to the strings that wasn't on the demo. With the strings combined, you get a little touch of Vanessa Carlton there...

All's well that ends well. I want it all back is now one of my own favorites on the new album. 

Listen to it here

Lyrics here

Credits:
Marjan Debaene: Lead and backing vocals, acoustic guitar, piano, keyboards, percussion
Alex Brackx: Electric guitars
Bert Embrechts: Bass guitar
Eric Bosteels: Drums


Next week another personal favorite: Oh my love

Hi folks, 

as you know, I released my new album 'The sound of the beat' on May 1st. After you've become acquainted with the songs for a few months, I feel the time is now right to talk a bit more about the album and tell you all the stories behind the songs. What are they about, when did I write them, why did I chose which arrangements, how was it to record them and so on. 
For the next twelve weeks, every tuesday, I will tell you a new story. Twelve songs, twelve stories. Sounds like fun? I sure think so. As with everything nowadays, if it doesn't have a hashtag, it doesn't exist. Since #tbt or #throwbackthursday is so 2014, it's time for #sbt or #storybeattuesday!  
So feel free to talk to me about the stories I will tell you. 

I will follow the running order of the album so first up is the album's opening track Sun's Glow. 

This song is probably the second oldest song on the album and one of the first I wrote after Wolfish Times (the album). I remember when the melody first came to me (they always come to me, I never look for them), it felt like a warm song, as in hot temperature, dust, trembling horizons. The kind of heat that precedes a fierce summer storm. Not long after the basic melody, the first verses began to form in my mind. The song is clearly about the sun and the glow, the warmth it produces. Although I wink at the little nursery rhyme 'Rosed are red, violets are blue' in the beginning, the song really isn't about love or children, but about almighty nature instead.
To feel the  comfortable heat of the sun's glow on your skin, is universally perceived as one of the nicest feelings in the world. The same goes for the soft and warm wetness of summer rain. Without it there would not be life, there would not be growth, there would not be oxygen (you know, fotosynthesis and all...) 
The old man grins of course because he knows rain is finally coming after the drought. 
Sun's glow is as much a song about comfortable warmth as it is a song about devastating heat. The song reflects on living in sync with the elements. 
For that kind of lyric, it was clear from the start that I would want to try to create the atmosphere of scorching heat and an imminent storm rising in late afternoon.... For me, the seventies kind of intro, with the little, almost hesitating and timid bassnotes and the organ, help to paint that picture. Also the picking banjo and the lazy drum by Eric add to that kind of southern summer feeling. The storm rolls in towards the end of the second chorus... (I feel the storm a-rising...) and with the solo, a wonderful repetitive and haunting melody played by Alex Brackx, the rain is coming down hard.... 
The end of the song is also the end of the storm...just a small drizzle still falling from the sky, that's starting to clear up.... The last few raindrops before the song fades. 

Comments? Use the hashtag #sbt or #storybeattuesday. Let me hear it ;)

Coming up next tuesday: On the road! 


Listen to Sun's glow on Soundcloud
Read the lyrics here

Credits Sun's glow
Marjan Debaene: Lead and backing vocals, acoustic guitar, hammond, percussion
Alex Brackx: Electric guitar, banjo
Bert Embrechts: Bass guitar
Eric Bosteels: Drums