Embrace (repost)

2 Jan 2007

Embrace

Current mood:awake

Hello and Happy New Year,

I've taken down all the other songs from our page this week so everyone can hear Embrace. It is the best song on the record (well at least in my opinion) and I figured if everything else was gone, you could only focus on that one track. It came about when a close friend of ours was very sick and possibly could have died. I had waited through the week to find out what was going on and after three days of thinking my friend might die (fuck) I finally heard he was going to turn it around and heal. The emotions inside me came out in this song, all in one rush.

I had turned on my mac and just played the repeating fifths on the piano, stopped, grabbed my phone and wallet and walked to the beer store near our house. On the way I made little voice memos with the chord progression and then lyric ideas into the mobile. On the return I figured out the chorus melody and lyric and had the entire thing pretty much sketched out in my head. I sat down, played a rough scratch on the piano, bass and guitar and then added some sampled drums, playing everything on the keyboard but not quantizing it so that the feel stayed organic. After just under an hour it was done.

Isabelle came home and heard it and really liked it. She urged me to put down a scratch vocal while the song was still resonating inside my brain, and what poured out turned out to be the exact vocal melody and lyrics to song. It was so strange to try and keep up with all the ideas just falling from the sky into my lap. I guess when you have something so important happen to you the emotions you've been trying to control must escape somewhere - in that case they came out as Embrace.

When I came to attempt keeper vocals I started the night Isabelle went ot NYC two days later. It was so moving I couldn't sing the whole song through without crying. Crazy I know. The next morning when I checked the rough mix I started getting all moist around the eyes as well. I had to put it away for a day so I could bottle up the waterworks. I had a session at a studio the next day and stayed behind very late in order to track some drums on the song - they are the ones you hear. (That's why it is such primative playing, I was bloody knackered and it ended up being 5AM before I got enough on the drives to consider it keeper- that on top of a 12 hour day makes for a bit of exhaustion, but hey, it's art right?)

Isabelle got back from New York and insisted on singing the chorus that night. I set up the mic and she sang it twice. The first take was near perfect and she punched in once at the second chorus. Unbelievable. I remember turning around in shock at the sounds coming out of her; so powerful and beautiful and such control. If you don't know, Isabelle started singing for the first time only twelve months earlier and man, had she come a long way!!

Anyway, I guess what I'm saying is this song wrote itself and recorded itself and now I hope everyone can hear it and love it too. It's not just for my friend but for everyone I care about: hopefully you can feel the same way with it towards your own family and friends.

2007 is going to be a very good year. Hope you all have a great one as well!!!

Thanks for reading,

Mark