I did set out to write a summer song but was hijacked by an unknown force that demanded I write something completely different.
I kicked the song off with a lovely marimba sound to suggest the movement of a crab on the beach.
I collected the summer imagery based on a holiday to the South in April. At the beginning of the holiday I went for several lovely walks along the beach in Shoreham in West Sussex. I thought to myself, wow, the summer is going to be great but I got into a terrible argument with my fiancee which ruined the end of our holiday and that, left us both feeling really flat. (We've since made up :-) )After that I started to think about how anticipation and beginnings can often be perfect but then sometimes, great beginnings derail. I started to write about a promising summer that didn't come to fruition, even though the summer hadn't really began or got into full swing. I then thought about something that happened when I was three years old, one of my earliest memories and suddenly, it was there in the song as a spoken word section "When I was a boy, I lived by the sea. My father said son, are you coming with me?' My Dad and I never really got along after that but those words 'Son, are you coming with me?' stayed with me for the rest of my life. I though about that day often down the years and suddenly the idea became part of a song.
So this isn't a summer song at all but it's a great example of how a song will sometimes go on a very different journey to how I initially expected it to.
It's just a demo, I wrote each section over different days as I waited to understand where the song wanted to go. I took very little care over the recording and even neglected the vocal panning and settings which, were different each time I added new sections. I know that I will never develop this or enter it into the summer song competition. it doesn't do what it was supposed to do. but I wanted to share it anyway.
April began
April began. We left our homes and drove down to the coast.
My hand on the wheel as Corrine Bailey sang our favourite song.
I yearn to belong. The Summer's almost here and yet, it's gone.
When i was a boy, I lived by the sea.
My father said “Son, are you coming with me?”
The beach was a blast. The surfer dudes rode waves that would not last.
The gulls in the sky, flew overhead in circles as they cried.
I yearn to belong. The Summer's almost here and yet, it's gone.
When I was a boy, I lived by the sea.
My father said “Son, are you coming with me?”
In the blink of an eye, relationships die.
We duck and we dive. In the spring we’re alive.
It was summer in spring.
When I was a boy, (summer in spring)
I lived by the sea (summer in spring).
My father said “Son, are you coming with me?”
Written by Paul Vasey May 2017
https://soundcloud.com/wicked-deeds/april-began