Music Story: Twist of Fate

11 Feb 2008

Twist of Fate

Good afternoon everyone. I was thinking of all the songs we'd posted on our page over the past year and it occurred to me that we've never once put up our song "Twist of Fate" on the myspace page. It's been on the Radio 3 site, and Last FM, but never on the myspace player. And, considering we still haven't finished any of our new songs, I thought if might be a nice little treat for anyone that hasn't heard it yet.

This was a track we wrote around the earlier stage of the album, maybe the fourth or fifth idea to come to us, but we never really put a lot of pressure on it. It's a cool song with some interesting ambiance and a satisfying build. Mr. Ryan Dahle (Limblifter) provided us with some lovely ethereal guitars for the middle section of the song as well.

I think the song came out of a piano improvisation I'd done earlier, and then brought out one night for Isabelle to hear. She's always had a soft spot for piano music so it worked for her too. The lyrics were written about a friend of ours, but I think you can interpret them in many different ways. (Our keyboardist Nick asked if it was about partner swapping which took me by surprise!)

We tracked a real piano at Mushroom Studio during our bedtrack session there and the real thing was so satisfying to play. Nothing like a seven foot grand piano when you hit those rich low notes. The drums were played by Jonas Fairley, and once again he did a fantastic job for us. Big impressive fills and a huge beat to create the crescendo in the climax of the song. I think we only did three takes, but I used the second one. So easy. Possibly the only difficulty I had with this song was singing the opening verse. It's a lot easier for me to sing really loud and shouty than quietly and intensely, so the opening lines were an exercise in restraint, which of course meant retracking a few times in order to get them in tune! (My brother Gary even noted that the singing was a bit pitchy when I'd played him an early demo of the song - and he's a Bob Dylan fan, so you know there had to be something pretty dodgy going on there!) The epic end section has the longest note I've ever sung, live or on record, and I don't know if I've even come close to hitting it for as long during one of our shows yet. That is the problem with playing live, your always out of breath, so the big operaman stuff gets played down a bit more than I'd like. Oh well, practice practice.

The words are very simple and scarce:

How long has it been
since you tried something new
How long has it been
since you tried someone new
How long will it be
'til you find someone new
How long will it be
'til you find you.

and I fall in a cycle I can't escape
and I feel irate with this twist of fate
and I fall in a cycle I can't escape
and I feel irate with this of fate.

there's so much more than this.

Anyway, won't go on with my usual long winded story telling and describe every detail, instead I'll just ask you to have a listen. Hope you like it; it's a calm moment on the album and I think nicely fills in a necessary mood change from the more upbeat and danceable numbers.

Thanks for reading, hope you're well.

Mark