Steps

Steps
Written and Recorded 2015

"Steps" is the second song I wrote in the new year, but I need to share the songwriting struggle that preceded. I was having particularly difficult time coming up with new material. At that point, I wasn't quite sure if the song I'd written a week earlier was actually good or not. Usually that's a bad sign, but it turned out to be one of my better ones (it's about a fox!)

Prior to this, I hadn't written a new song in over 4 months. This is extremely long time for me to go without ANYTHING. Honestly, I became a little worried that the well dried up. I became acutely aware of my lack of production as the next Whiskey Doubles recording approached. I kept telling myself that I hadn't written anything because I didn't want to cloud the preparation for the recording, I didn't want to distract myself or others. But that wasn't true at all.

After the recording weekend passed, my worry escalated to near panic. "What if I'm done?" That thought continued running through my head. Every time I picked up a guitar I hoped something would happen. I hoped the floodgates would open and 10 new songs would come out so quickly that I'd barely be able to record them all in time. That didn't happen.

Instead, one song was created but quickly scratched. I was so excited by it at the time that I forced out a terrible chorus, couldn't come up with lyrics, and two days later I shelved it. Again, more worry set in. The next weekend, the fox song was born. Like I mentioned, I was unsure about it and still wasn't convinced that my time was not over. Another week went by and after recording some Irish tunes for St. Patty's, I stayed up in the studio with my guitar and noodled around with some chord progressions. Suddenly I had the verse progression of "Steps." I knew that if I could write this song and see it through, that I'd be ok. So I let the inspiration flow and crafted the song in about an hour, showered, and went to a work party feeling pretty damn good.

• The lyrics are about a young man who left his home with high ambitions, but ends up losing himself and wanders aimlessly. During the song, memories are triggered by his surroundings and actions. Instead of ignoring them, he uses them to move forward.
• This is another bare bones demo (complete with some flubs) that I gave to the Doublers to fill in their own parts. I knew the harmonies on the chorus would be important to the song, so I laid those down too.
• The lead guitar that you hear was recorded as a guide for the cello part I hoped would come. I don't usually get in Kent's way, but I had some incredibly clear melodic material that I couldn't shake. I thought he'd really enjoy the triplet build up to the bridge.
• Since starting the blog, I've really become aware of some songwriting techniques that I use. The one that keeps coming back to me is the lack of lyrics over the bridge section. Though I'm not sure that I fully realize it while writing the actual song, I always make sure that a bridge or solo has a purpose. In this case, it breaks the song structure up, advances some melodic material, and builds towards the last verse. Being a particularly strong section, I brought it back to end the song with.
• While messing with key and structure, I was tempted to put that bridge at the start of the song too. But I like how we get right into the song and wait for the reveal till after the 2nd verse and chorus.