BACKGROUND

You Sing is what I guess can be called a pop-rock ballad, with some definite Trap/hip-hop elements blended in. Again, it was a song initially written many years ago, inspired by the incredible Annie Quick album "Souvenirs and Shiny Things".  My dear lifelong friend Tobias Gebb played drums on the album, and I was really taken by the songwriting, singing, production and musicianship on the album.  At that time, I was really struggling to write songs that I liked, or in some cases to complete songs that were piling up as half-baked sketches.  I was frustrated and at the same time inspired by this album.  I found myself wishing I could write music that felt satisfying in a similar way as I felt when listening to that record.  It wasn't even that I wanted to mimic the style of the album per se, but rather the creative spirit and energy the songs imparted on me.  I did indeed finish the song back then, but never got to record it the way I was hearing it in my head.  Fast-forward 15 years or so, and I finally dusted it off and gave it a new, modernized treatment.  A spacious, moody start builds into the heavy, guitar-driven chorus. Ultimately, the song is about the double-edged sword of comparing our own art to others that we admire. This can be inspiring, but also daunting and frustrating.  Ultimately we have to do our own thing and fully put our hearts and souls into it.

LYRICS:

A note: Reading the lyrics, it may seem almost dismissive of the source of inspiration (e.g. "I don't care what you do, or who you hold on to", or "you waste my time"), but the intended message is that I wasn't obsessing over Annie Quick or the band as people, but rather the content.  I also found myself at times more absorbed in admiring the music versus spending time creating my own, hence "you waste my time, but I don't mind". 

I don't care what you do
Or who you hold on to
But I care what you say
I listen every day

And you waste my time
You waste my time again
Yeah, you waste my time
But I don't mind

A souvenir... of something that I wish I could be
A shiny thing... I want to hold on to

And you waste my time
You waste my time again
Yeah, you waste my time
But I don't mind

Yeah you sing, you sing, you sing, you sing
How you sing your songs to me
Yeah you sing, you sing, you sing, you sing
How you sing your songs to me

I don't know what to write, what to play, what to say
How to make it sound half as good as you
But I don't care if it's old and it's grey and it's torn
'Cause it's all that I've got to hold on to

And you waste my time
You waste my time again
Yeah, you waste my time
But I don't mind

Yeah you sing, you sing, you sing, you sing
How you sing your songs to me
Yeah you sing, you sing, you sing, you sing
How you sing your songs to me

THE MUSIC

Hearing more and more "trap" music and all the variants that are evoking this style has been interesting and intriguing to me lately.  I really enjoy mixing drum loops and programmed electronic beats with more organic elements, and so I started You Sing by layering many different drum loops on top of programming I did using the Native Instruments Battery 4 VST.  I also wanted a definite sub-bass bottom end to the song, so I layered an 808-style bass along with a fretless synth bass, both courtesy of the freakishly amazing Trillian Bass VST Instrument.  There's also a really cool growly mid-range bass from Arturia in the choruses too.  After the rhythm section was established, I layered acoustic and electric clean rhythm guitars, heavier distorted guitars in the choruses, and a bunch of different soft-synths for chord textures and atmosphere.  The vocals owe a lot to support from Waves Vocal Bender, both for low octave support and automating the higher auto-tuned style flourishes.  At the end of the process, as fate and years passing by would have it, I feel like I finally got to express what I was trying to way back then.  Sometimes these things take time.