FAWM 2020

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PaulAds

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« on: March 10, 2020, 11:46:31 PM »
Well...i decided to sign up to do February Album Writing Month for the third time. I left it late again...because i really don't see any point in being prepared for it...it's the "backs against the wall" horror of it that gets you thinking.

I was a few days in before i even got started...with a simple 1+1 guitar/vocal take "what would Joe have done" written about Joe Strummer for International Clash day on Feb 7th.

I wasn't really feeling it, but the Forum James Bond theme tune thing got me thinking about how much i don't like the whole James Bond thing...so I put together a song for that, called "blowback"

A couple of days later, i saw someone online refer to someone they're supposedly friends with as a C_NT with the internet-speak "CUNextTuesday" and i quickly knocked out a lyric for that. I was beginning to struggle at this point...but sitting staring at the fretboard...i mashed "wipeout" into a minor-chord riff and hoped that it didn't sound too much like something somebody else had already done. My voice was a bit ropey at this point after a couple of weekend gigs, so i used the Mac narrator voice again. That came together OK, and quite quickly...but wasn't really a full song...and the clock was ticking. I didn't want to spend much time on it as i don't really like songs like that, so i whacked it out and moved on.

Then i did "Never Not Together" a song i always intended to write based on a story in a book i read by William Craig about some italian POWs captured by the Russians at Stalingrad. They were good friends, but one of them died in prison...so his mate decided to pretend he was still alive to get the extra rations...so they used to drag him out of bed and prop him in a chair and talk to him when the guards came around to do a head-count and dish out the meagre rations. Cheery stuff. That went ok i thought...but time was whizzing by.

I was getting into a rut by this time...so tried something a little different. The "sessionband" iOS apps are quite useful and fun...and their "piano" app had a "john legend" type demo which i liked the sound of...so i mashed that up a bit...at which point i thought it sounded like the theme from "Cheers" which i think was subtitled "where everybody knows your name" so i did a sort of parody of that and "friends" and all that other ghastly american drivel. I think by this time, with it being quite a USA-centered thing, i was a bit hung-up on poking fun at the american dream. "Jeers" i thought summed it up better.

Just a couple of days later, i was trying to do another song inspired by The Clash...using the drums from "lost  in the supermarket" from "london calling" but i had a few other ideas knocking around my head...and everything was beginning to sound the same...so i decided to ditch all of the guitars and just tap out a tune using the computer keyboard and do an 80's style pop song using only midi instruments. I found a nice bass synth and a plinky-plonky glockenspeil type thing to get me started. Turning 12 in 1980, i thought i'd get into character and write something about how i felt back then. Mostly negative, as i recall. I used some A-HA style drums...and handclaps and bollocks like that...and made a fairly jaunty number out of it and called it "BitterSour". In hindsight, i really like that one, although it made me sad to remember how dreadful i often felt about how things were. When i was a kid, i was really happy and i honestly thought life was going to be brilliant for everybody. It could be. And it should be.

Then I was determined to get another song cooking with the great samples I recently stumbled upon from "New York Brass" before their website disappeared. I got a bit bogged down with this one...and spent way too much time on it. It can be a bit of a pain...going to work...trying to write stuff and get it recorded in a couple of days and playing gigs at the weekend too...and I nearly threw in the towel at this point...it's a hobby, after all. "They're not in here for stealing smarties" is what some of the staff in Broadmoor used to say about their patients in the book i recently read. So that was the working title...but decent lyrics wouldn't come to me, so i left it as an instrumental to be revisited, hopefully...as i was miles behind at this point.

After a small pep-talk from a friend about trying to keep going with it all...a guy who produced a songwriting course suggested picking a phrase for a hook and writing a song around that...and i happened upon "Still look for you...still wonder what you do" and i knocked that up in a couple of days...using a drum track i think i might have used previously. It was meant to be a breezy style-council-type thing...but i was trying too hard by this time...and it was really giving me a headache...so i had a few days off

I thought i'd have a go at doing a Jam song...as i really love The Jam. So i fired up a drum part...joined in on the bass and thought it sounded like the start of "thick as thieves" - so i went with that...came up with a riff around "A" that i liked that also fitted into the "2-4-6-8 motorway" chords...and then thought i'd try to cram a bit of a "when you're young" style chorus in there...that went ok...but when i came to sing it...it was a little too high...but it was too late to change it...so i was stuck with it. I decided to sneak a little cheeky "going underground" style mini guitar break into it...nipping up to "C" and back for the last verse. The lyrics were going to be a different song...again, a little american-sounding where i really wanted something much more "english" as would befit The Jam...but every idea that i had seemed to be corny rubbish...and i was 5 songs short with 5 days to go...so it became "the enemy within" I decided to take a few more days over that one, as i quite liked it...and i thought if i didn't get 14, i'd just admit defeat.

I had three or four songs lined up, but lost interest a bit...and didn't really think they were very good. I had quite a few lyrics i could have knocked into shape and posted...but it seemed pointless to produce any old twaddle just for the sake of saying "hooray...i've done 14 songs" so with 4 days to go, i decided i was done.

Quite a relief, to be honest.

I was really pleased, though...as i'd written nine songs i'd never have written otherwise...and they were all brand new, without using any old tat i had lying around, or any ideas i'd saved up just for the occasion.

It took me a couple of months to get the songs finished and tarted-up to sound (almost) respectable in 2017 and 2018...whereas this time, with a few tweaks, they are mostly ready to go.

Also, a few of them were in styles that are quite different to what i would normally do...so that was interesting to try. It is a bit crazy though. It's funny doing 14 songs...because you could write 14 lyrics and it'd count as 14 songs...or you could write 14 instrumentals and it'd count as 14 songs...but if you write 14 lyrics to fit the 14 instrumentals that you write...it's still just 14 songs...rather than 28...but i would say that, wouldn't i  ::)

So i found it worthwhile, but very hard work...and i could never say i really enjoyed it at the time. I'll be posting most, if not all, of the songs i wrote in february over the next couple of months or so. In previous years, i haven't always posted everything i wrote for FAWM here...as some of them were a bit rubbish.

« Last Edit: March 10, 2020, 11:57:58 PM by PaulAds »
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CaliaMoko

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« Reply #1 on: March 11, 2020, 02:01:36 AM »
Whew! That wore me out, so I think I'll toddle off to bed. What a whirlwind of activity. I'm not quite back to 100% (well, I've never been 100%, so....) and a little short of ready to try something as grueling as FAWM. I tried it one year. I got 14 titles written, plus an album cover designed. A theme album about having a sunny outlook on life, or something like that. I'd have to go back and look. I might even have some lyrics done. Now I'm thinking about it, I have to go look....

Album title was Sunshine and Raindrops (meaning it takes both to make things grow--in life as well as in the garden). I only have seven titles on the album cover, but I see three of them have actually been written. Maybe four. Sort of.

Anyway, what a lot of writing you did! I'm impressed! And inspired. Maybe inspiration will last until next February!  :o ;D

pompeyjazz

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« Reply #2 on: March 11, 2020, 11:57:26 AM »
Well, what a fascinating read @PaulAds I reckon you have done brilliantly well and it's also interesting to see how FAWM kinda forces you to look at alternative angles.

Well done once again  :)

MichaelA

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« Reply #3 on: March 11, 2020, 05:46:31 PM »
Hi @PaulAds, fascinating read. I admire your resilience and creativity. When I was in my first band many years ago as a kid we couldn't come up with our own tunes for love nor money. So we decided we would have to have a sustained period of writing naff tunes in order to try to master this songwriting skill. Eventually, after a succession of the worlds worst songs, we did get a bit better. But by then nobody would come to see us as we had a reputation for sounding so bad. So we just changed our name and we got bookings again!  ;D

Anyway, I bet you have a handful of gems in your 14, and a few that you will probably brush quietly under the carpet in a few weeks. But I will also wager you feel a bit sharper for it. Would you say it's like getting 'match fit' for sport? Cheers. Maybe I need to work harder!
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Jamie

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« Reply #4 on: March 11, 2020, 06:36:05 PM »
@PaulAds
Hi Paul, fascinating read, really enjoyed it. I could never undertake such a concentrated effort, too lazy  ;D, or not talented enough, others can judge ;). Brilliant descriptions pulled together, I can’t remember how I wrote any of my songs, at least not in that detail.
Well done mate!
Cheers
Jamie

adamfarr

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« Reply #5 on: March 19, 2020, 12:10:07 PM »
I think I'm just not a good enough player to be so productive, it takes me a week to work out a guitar part and then...

Very impressive though and I'm sure that even if the results aren't 100% the best you could normally produce (though no complaints so far) the process must get your creativity really fired up. It's interesting how many different ways you came up with the ideas and song... which is probably a great exercise in itself.

Chapeau to you.