Having collaborated with two of my very good, musical friends this month on two distinct songs, I assumed that would be the end of my musical inspiration, at least until 2024. But, then I was on Threads, and happened upon the account of singer-songwriter janapochop.
Cut to the chase, here’s my new song – Like a flame to a moth. It’s NOT about moths…
In the spirit of finding new music, I checked out her Spotify and there are some wondrous songs to be heard. In particular one called Pretty Please. Jana describes this, her latest song, as having been “produced by me in my bedroom in Brooklyn…but I tried to make it sound like the New Mexico desert night sky.” It is wonderfully evocative and having visited New York and New Mexico a long time ago it struck a chord.
It also struck something else and made me think that I hadn’t tried to write that kind of imagery in a song for a long time. So, I sat down and let the lyrics flow. I then thought about grabbing a guitar and doing my usual singer-songwriter type approach to coming up with the chords and a melody, but nothing felt right. So, I turned to my music software and grabbed a few built-in loops, some harp, some strings, a few beats, and pulled a song structure together with the intention if ad libbing the lyrics over the top of it and then recording live instruments to fit after the fact.
Well, the loops were nice enough and the lyrics evolved, a melody came forth. I pulled a weird middle section together with live guitar and bass. Somehow, this spilled into the following loop section and nudged me to restructure the lyrics and to create something of a refrain. Fun AND games.
Needless to say once I had a demo, I re-recorded the vocals, added some harmonies, pulled together a proper guitar track, added a solo, did a fairly heavy and funky bassline to fit and then mixed it down. A couple of days later I was extending the refrain, adding a little more vocal and mixing it down to the song that’s on my BandCamp page right now. As with most of my songs, it’s genre fluid, starts off a little proggie, builds to a power ballad thing, breaks to some funk rock and then goes full-on crossover for the finale. I suppose bottom line, it’s like Peter Gabriel was doing Big Time while he was still with Genesis in 1973…ish…
Anyway, Jana had a listen, which pleased me no end, and had this to say:
“HOLY this is AWESOME!! This is a whole journey and it’s already stuck in my head – glad to have maybe sparked this but you created a whole world here!!”
…which pleased me no end again.
Long-time collaborator Andrea T had this to say about the song:
“It sounds fantastic – I especially like the chorus, with that driving rhythm and the way it all builds around the swirling arpeggios. The kind of ‘spare’ quality of your voice is quite Peter Gabriel adjacent, and the timbre of some specific words in this one, especially ‘firedoor’, ‘heartbeat’, and ‘blame’… quite uncanny. Actually, think it’s one of the best things you’ve done!”
Like a flame to a moth
Someone’s running up the stair
Brushing metal, stepping hard
The trembling painted banister
The firedoor, insanely barred
There’s no smoking in the kitchen
But, the fire’s out of control
The flames they flickered with your heartbeat
The smoke it lingered in your soul
Like a moth to a flame
Like a flame to a moth
You’re finding its caress
Feeds the burning of the cloth
Like a flame to a moth
Like a moth to a flame
You’re hiding your distress
in the playing of the game
Like a moth to a flame
Like a flame to a moth
It’s knowing your success
Is someone else’s loss
Like a flame to a moth
Like a moth to a flame
It’s the ticking of the clock
The acceptance of blame
There’s a light on in the hallway
Its wires they go deep underground
It’s pulsing to the time of your heartbeat
Yet it didn’t make a sound
Here’s the link to the song again – Like a flame to a moth