Saturday, July 25, 2020

White Sky Songwriting Saturday

For most of the day the sky has glowered and sulked, promising rain but delivering only a headache.
Ian Button's done a great mix of the song Michel Wallace and me collaborated on, and that was a sunny thing to receive in the inbox this morning.
By the time the rain finally squeezed itself out of the clouds a repeat of Come Dine With Me was on and I'd bought a pie in the market, so I watched that while flaky pastry fluffed about between me and the plate.
I had spent part of the morning singing The Cutty Wren on to the backing track, and managed to embed the vocal into the track really well (it's bloody fast!) but my pitching wasn't delicate enough, so I left it for another day.
About an hour ago I made the template for another song I'm working on, but this time my guitar playing was sounding stiff so I left that for another day too, although I got the singing done on that one.
I don't know if I'm getting fussier, or worse at playing and singing. I do know that I get so deeply into what I'm listening to that firstly I lose track of the time, and secondly, it's absolutely exhausting. Everything is permanently set up in the kitchen at the moment so if the mood strikes I can just switch on and... well, switch on.
We have a 'distanced' day booked in the studio in Brixton next Sunday, I've ordered some clear protective specs and I'm just waiting for Robert to do the next bits of those songs; meanwhile Jude has worked on the next section of the Desperado Housewives song, and it's Kath's turn to add something.
It's so odd, because at the beginning of this year I thought that I'd like to do a lot more collaborations; I'd already been enjoying working with Robert, and was made up that Johny Brown asked me to play on his songs for the concert-that-never-happened-but-will-in-October-I-hope. Then this virus happened, and the collaboration thing has really come into fruition. It hasn't stopped me from writing songs on my own, but it's like a wonderful added extra that has crystallised out into the vacuum left by the cancellation of all the live gigs.
So interesting to work with, all those different voices, styles, chords, ideas.....

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