The deep end
and so it was that his day began with an early morning ride in his truck down to the nearby lake. The sunlight flickered through the trees, bouncing off the water, capturing the beauty of God’s natural world. That’s when he first saw her, walking in the shallows, kicking through the water in a carefree manner. How could they know what was about to unfold? “It took a beautiful day to make an ugly mistake.” That was the beginning of their relationship and their brief time together. He was a womaniser, she was a beautiful rodeo cowgirl. Before the end of the summer, they were married in the state of Texas. He managed to leave his womanising ways behind ‘until the end of their wedding date but it wasn’t long before he returned to the life-style that he was accustomed to, failing at the first hurdle when a woman at the bar told him ‘he’d be welcome to stay. A father might often warn his daughter about the charm of certain men. Truth is, this was never meant to be. The young woman should have “cut loose in Texas.” “Some girls you’re never meant to meet.”
https://soundcloud.com/pvasey1/paul-the-deep-end-steve-wild-paul-vaseythe deep end
Left my keys in the truck,
Walked down to the lake.
It took a beautiful day
to make an ugly mistake
The sunlight flickered in the shallows
Falling gently on her skin.
He Daddy said there'd be moments
That shouldn't ever begin.
She's a rodeo cowgirl.
drinking late at the bar.
Should have cut loose in Texas
driving safe in her car.
We were married that spring
In the bright lone star state.
left my problems behind
'til the end of the date.
Come the fall, I was slipping;
falling back on my ways.
Met a woman who told me
I'd sure be welcome to stay.
The sunlight flickered in the shallows,
falling gently on her skin.
He Daddy said there'd be moments
that shouldn't ever begin.
She's a rodeo cowgirl.
drinking late at the bar.
Should have cut loose in Texas
Driving safe in her car.
Don’t go swimming in the deep end.
Some girls, you’re never meant to keep.
Don’t go swimming in the deep end.
Some girls, you’re never meant to keep.
The sunlight flickered in the shallows
We were never meant to meet.
Don’t go swimming in he deep end.
We were never meant to meet.
Lyrics written by Paul Vasey
Lyrically, the spark began with the title that Steve supplied. I decided to set the scene with a guy driving his truck down to a lake. I wanted to embrace a typical country tactic of opposites: “a beautiful day to make an ugly mistake.” I used words and phrases that we all might associate with country music: words of advice from “her Daddy”, “rodeo cowgirl”, “driving safe in her car”, (cars often feature in country music) “drinking late at the bar”, “Texas”, “the bright lone-star state”, “The Fall”.as opposed to Autumn. It’s a fabricated story but that doesn’t mean that it lacks substance. I think it’s a songwriters job to draw upon every experience in their tool box to give a story authenticity. It’s my opinion that songs rarely work when we don’t connect with that inner part of ourselves.
I could immediately hear the potential in Steve’s musical track. However, I knew that I would have to make changes to the structure to make this work in my favour.
Though very similar throughout, I could hear sections that represented what I needed but they didn’t fall exactly where I wanted them to. I wanted two identical verse patterns which are not evident in the original structure so had to do a little cut and pasting on the main guitar track and bass to achieve this. Anything else that I considered to be surplus was ruthlessly discarded with virtual scissors. I could hear the desired eq settings in my head and from there, it was a matter of jumping down the rabbit hole until I emerged with my prize on each of Steve’s stems. I was able to take my favourite elements of Steve’s playing from the other stems and at times, add each part exactly where I needed them to be. At times, I altered the position of notes that Steve played because I could hear them differently in my head. Sometimes I hear slightly different phrasing or even different notes. It's annoying as hell. More Eq work followed including adding various degrees of reverb to the different tracks. I tried to achieve greater clarity with the guitar parts so didn’t add other effects.
The bass was always something that I thought about addressing as I couldn’t get the sound that I wanted from the original take. At the last hour, I plugged in my bass and pretty much played what Steve had played but I was able to record it the way that I wanted it to be. I’ve deliberately pushed the bass forward though that isn’t usually my style as I prefer to have it sitting right back in the mix. I hope I didn’t overdo it.
There’s also a new drum track. The vocal, was eq’d, a little reverb was added then I used a tape delay with a very short delay time to create an ambience of a small reflective room. Finally, I added the audio of the truck to the beginning and end of the song (I hope that it communicates the idea of the guy arriving in his truck at the scene where he first encounters his bride to be and again leaving at the end.) The minor string chord placed at the intro and the outro conveys the sadness of the story for both characters: the young woman who was warned by her father about charming yet selfish men and her husband who chooses to repeat past mistakes that will surely not lead to his future happiness. I didn’t want to go with the original outro as I felt this song needed something a little more sophisticated and less predictable. As the song nears it’s ending, instruments start to fade in the mix and I think I achieved a rater beautiful effect with the added strings which really was the most simple approach to employ.
Though all of the musical parts were there to begin with, I’d say it became quite a difficult task to deconstruct then reassemble whilst crafting a song. It would have been easier to write a song from scratch. All in all, many, many hours of work yet a very enjoyable experience. A little bit like restoring a ship is probably my best analogy of the task undertaken. Not perfect by any means but I don’t feel that I can steer this one any further.
“Should have cut loose in Texas.”
https://soundcloud.com/pvasey1/paul-the-deep-end-steve-wild-paul-vasey