Songwriting

Whiskey Road Pt 3 – The Demo

rshiffer , ,

This blog concludes the 3 part series on the writing of the lyrics for Whiskey Road.

First, I will say that I am quite happy with how this song turned out.  The musicians were great and really nailed it. They are all studio musicians out of Nashville, and I wish I had all of their names so I could credit them properly.  Adam Cunningham sang it. Look him up on the web. He is amazing, and brought a lot to this performance.

I love listening in on the sessions. Mark produces them and the musicians are so incredible it is hard to believe. They typically do a single take with a punch-in or two for anything they didn’t like. It is rare that they need a second take, and I don’t recall ever hearing a third. And they are coming in cold to the song. They get a chart, listen to the work tape, discuss the arrangement with Mark for a minute or two and then play it like they have known it all their lives. Truly humbling.

After the song is mixed I can’t help but listen to it a few time – who wouldn’t, it’s my baby! But after that I try to put the song away for a few days so that I can listen to it with fresh ears. The musicians and singer have quite a bit of freedom, and I often react on the first hearing by thinking anything that is different from what was in my head is ‘wrong’. But that isn’t true. If I let it sit a few days I can come back and hear it like someone else would, and most of the time I find I like how they interpreted it. Other times when I hear it fresh something sticks out as ‘ooh, I wish I’d done that differently’ – usually a lyric or part of the melody that just didn’t quite work.

That brings up a good point about the difference between being a song writer and an artist. As a writer, I have had to learn to let go of the performance. After all, my ultimate goal is to have other people record my songs – I am just making demo tapes. That has been difficult at times, because I grew up performing my own music. But I am not anywhere near the level that the musicians on this recording are, and so I am extremely grateful for what they do.

OK, back to talking about Whiskey Road. In this case I loved the performance the first time I heard it, and I still do after a couple of weeks.  I have been surprised at some of the responses i have gotten from other people. For example, one person’s first reaction was that the music sounded ‘happy’ considering the subject matter.  That isn’t what I intended, but each person is going to hear and interpret each song based on their experiences, and that is fine.  When I hear this song, I feel it is what we used to call our ‘1 am song’ when I was playing clubs. That is the moody song we would play around 1 am when everyone in the bar was a little drunk, and starting to feel moody. It’s also the type of song people might wave their lighter to in a large venue, or someone might do an acoustic version of to really focus on the feeling in the vocals. But, however you hear it is up to you; I just hope it makes you feel something. As one of my professors once said – “I’d rather someone get up and walk out of a performance than sit there indifferently.” I feel that way too.

So without further ado – and whether you love it or hate it – here is Whiskey Road with the lyrics so you can follow along.

Whiskey Road

I’ve been living in hell for a year or so
Ever since I watched my baby go
But I found a new home
On Whiskey Road

Now I don’t feel no pain, I don’t feel a thing
And when I get to remembering
I can always go home
To Whiskey Road

It’s my own damned fault, that’s for sure
I drink to forget about her
But the alcohol ain’t strong enough to make her memory go
So one day soon I’ll drown on Whiskey road

You know they write the blues for fools like me
Who let their love turn to misery
And wander alone
Down this lonesome road

[Solo]

I’m in too deep, I’m over my head
I can’t forget the last words she said
Before she slipped away she whispered
I love you so

[chorus]

Ya the alcohol ain’t strong enough, to make her memory go
So why do I keep walkin’ down Whiskey road
Someday I'll down on Whiskey road

Wordsmithing ‘Whiskey Road’

rshiffer , , ,

Welcome back, this is the second blog where I describe writing the lyrics to a song called ‘Whiskey Road’.  The first part of the blog is here, if you haven’t read it.

Part 2 – the 2nd draft

Having a structure and some idea of the story in the first draft, my next pass is to try to tighten things up. At this point I am experimenting with different melodies, chord changes and rhythm. I try this in different time signatures, at several tempos, and with rhythms that are closer to spoken rhythms as well as some that are more syncopated. For this song I am not trying to write the melody and chords yet, but it helps me feel how well the words will sing and get a feel for the number of syllables I have to work with. Any given line can be sung with more or fewer syllables by changing the rhythm of the words.
That is the sort of thing I am brainstorming on now.

I also look at each line – the main change comes in the chorus, where I took two lines from the second chorus and added two new lines, throwing away the first draft. This puts the moral of the story firmly in the chorus. I also dropped the bridge, as it wasn’t really adding anything to the story. I will need to put something else in to add contrast in the song, but I feel like this draft improved the quality of the lines while simplifying the song at the same time. There are two lines I feel are placeholder – ‘It’s time I see, I’m in too deep’, but I decide to leave those until the final draft, which I will do with Mark.

Here is the 2nd draft.  At this point, I felt pretty good about the lyrics:

I’ve been living in hell for a year or so
Ever since I watched my baby go
But I found a new home
On Whiskey Road

Now I don’t feel no pain, I don’t feel a thing
And when I get to remembering
I can always go
To Whiskey Road

It’s my own damned fault, that’s for sure
My heart would mend if I let her go
But I’m hanging on, even though I know
I’ll probably die on Whiskey Road

You know they write the blues for fools like me
Who turn their love into misery
And won’t let go
Of this lonesome road

I don’t remember what I did today
I smell like something I don’t want to say
It’s time I see
I’m in too deep

[chorus]

Why am I’m still walkin’
I’m not even tryin’
I guess I gave up fightin’
Whiskey Road

Why am I still walking Whiskey Road

Final Draft

The final step for this song was to take it to Mark Riddick, who is my songwriting coach and co-writer.  I find collaboration invaluable.  It gives me feedback on which ideas are working and which aren’t, and when we get creative together I get to see and hear other ways to approach the subject matter.  It is also just fun.

Mark is always positive when I first play him something, but we quickly get down to business.  I won’t get into his techniques here, but I would recommend that every aspiring songwriter find a good coach or co-writer.  Having other people’s input is invaluable.

The hardest change at this point was dropping the line ‘I smell like something I don’t want to say’.  I thought it was a funny line, but it was out of character with the rest of the song. It is important that lines don’t stick out in ways that draw the wrong sort of attention to the lyrics.  You want to draw them in with each line, and not jar the listener.

I made one other big change too – they didn’t break up, but she died.  You learn about that in the 3rd verse/bridge.  That gives a different meaning to a lot of the lines, and I think makes the song more interesting.

You can read the changes below.  These are the lyrics that we are taking into the recording session:

I’ve been living in hell for a year or so
Ever since I watched my baby go
But I found a new home
On Whiskey Road

Now I don’t feel no pain, I don’t feel a thing
And when I get to remembering
I can always go home
To Whiskey Road

It’s my own damned fault, that’s for sure
I drink to forget about her
But the alcohol ain’t strong enough to make her memory go
So one day soon I’ll drown on Whiskey road

You know they write the blues for fools like me
Who let their love turn to misery
And wander alone
Down this lonesome road

[Solo]

I’m in too deep, I’m over my head
I can’t forget the last words she said
Before she slipped away she whispered
I love you so

[chorus]

But the alcohol ain’t strong enough, to make her memory go
So why do I keep walkin’ down Whiskey road
Why am I still walkin’ Whiskey road

I will post the song, and maybe even the work tape (the recording I do before the session so the musicians can hear the song), after the recording session next month.  Work tapes will get a blog just about them, as will the recording session.

The third and final part of this blog is here.  Listen to the final recording, and my thoughts on it.