TL:DR – I’ve written a new song. It’s now on BandCamp and FREE to the first 200 people to download.
John Keats’ headstone in the Cemitero Acattolico famously has the line:
Here Lies One Whose Name was writ in Water
I’d misremembered this or maybe misread it somewhere as history as ephemeral information easily lost, never really solid in the first place, history written on water. Apparently, it was much earlier though, in Beaumont and Fletcher’s play Philaster, 1611: ‘All your better deeds Shall be in water writ, but this in Marble.’ Longfellow quoted Keats’ epitaph in his ode to the ‘young English poet’.
As is my wont, I wrote a few words around this phrase, trying to make a new song. I had a little chord progression that involved two-finger open chords up and down the neck, but fundamentally the progression was Em-C-Am-B. I recorded a demo with the rough words a couple of days before my birthday, but it didn’t really gel. It was sparse, fragile, spare…could’ve been a nice song, perhaps sung by someone else.
I was going to ditch it. But, come Friday evening with an empty house, I went back to basics with those open chords and just played them as I would normally have done at the first positions on guitar with a couple of little tweaks. It was a bit too high for me to sing the melody I’d come up with comfortably, so I stuck a capo on the third fret and dropped my voice to fit. There are still some high bits, thank goodness for Melodyne assisting me with the accuracy of the upper harmonies.
I worked up my lyrics over the evening and came up with a way to make a chorus work, chopping up the evolving chord progression of the verse and making it a more basic rock pattern. Then a bridge with a spot of modulation, a key change, to open things up and take it back into a final chorus.
So, with lyrics tweaked, three sections in, I ran a 1+1 vocal and guitar, added a second acoustic guitar with a bit of distortion, did a pseudo-mandolin section, tapped along with a MIDI keyboard to add some percussion, and then played a bit of bass. To finish it off, I recorded a fake classical ending using the chords from the verses and pitch-shifted it up an octave to make it sound like a musical box, all very silly, but just an esoteric finale for fun. Some glockenspiel on the MIDI keyboard and a bit of MIDI keyboard for sax too…
It was all quite complex by now and the drums sounded crap. I redid those on cajon a few days later and still it sounded crap. In stepped my friend Dave Oliffe of Giant Audio Studio with whom I’ve been co-producing Cluce-upon-Sea’s latest album. Dave is a fabulous drummer and made an easy job of playing along to my track with the original percussion muted. The final mix is now on the Dave Bradley BandCamp page. There’s a lot going on lyrically and musically in this tune, do give it a couple of listens.
History written on the water
The secret’s out, they could’ve lied
The silent treatment terrified
The missing link, the dimmest spark
The wording just a little too dark
It was always written in ascorbic ink
Unread terms that make you think
A contract signed between the lines
The Eagle’s talons tightly bind
I had to find my way back home
No more time left to roam
My grand designs lost on the breeze
The faithless falling to their knees
CHORUS
Time and tide they wait for no man
Empty promises in disguise
Shallow seas will claim your secrets
Crushing waves beneath the endless skies
CHORUS COUNTERMELODY
They won’t wait for you
Promise me that you’ll be fine
Won’t you just reclaim your secret
Beneath the waves, there’s a better view
The secret’s out, they could’ve told you
A candle snuffed from sacred view
A world gone dark your plans unmade
An empty bed the price that’s paid
It was always written in ascorbic ink
All terms unread won’t make you think
A contract signed between the lines
The Eagle’s talons tightly bind
You’re history written in the water
The turnaround is where it ought to be
Unholy ground that nothing saves
The words unread, far beneath the waves
Some of the lyrics are deliberate cliches, like the whole “time and tide” refrain because I often allude to the sea in my music. Ascorbic ink, in case you couldn’t see right through that was an allusion to invisible ink made from lemon juice. Originally, it was the (legal) Eagle’s hidden talons. I think the closing “You’re history” was originally “Your history”, but then I thought it could also mean “you are history”, meaning “you’re finished”.
To be honest, I’ve no idea what the song is about, secrets, plans gone wrong, contracts, lawyers, faith, the sea, drowning? Maybe subconsciously I’ve written a song about The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin.