Song Writing - Stop Givin Up On Love

Here's another new song from our forth-coming Autonomous album.  This one is sequenced as the album's closing track, a sweet way to say goodbye (before starting the whole thing over again!).

We started writing Stop Givin Up On Love over four years ago.  It was titled If Not Love and was much slower, with a completely different chorus.  However the story behind the lyrics has remained pretty much  the same.  It's a song I wrote initially about my brother, who was going through a very rough patch, and in it's initial iteration was very slow and a little depressing sounding.  We put it away and hardly gave it a thought for years.  It was written in the same weekend as our song California, which also started out much slower than it's ended up.

At around xmas last year I was going though all the various songs that we'd sketched, recorded, or finished, trying to get a feel for what was going to make up our album.   Because I've started writing and recording  in Ableton Live it was really easy to play with the tempo of the song and by bringing it up 10 bpm it started to happily bounce along.  That gave me the confidence to continue playing around with it.  My first thought was to ditch the dreary sounding chorus and write something better.  The words came from a conversation Isabelle and I were having that afternoon, and suddenly we had a new hook!  Well the world's not spinning faster, a hundred years for us to master, stop givin up on love.  It was simple, and fairly obvious in its meaning, and I adored the harmony and top line Isabelle sings.  It sounds so caribbean and happy!

The keyboard parts were really fun.  The whole rethink began with the sparse synth bass.  Then the bouncy Nick Rhodes kinda part immediately appeared and I decided to really pay some homage to ol' Duran Duran.

As we developed the song we had a really fun night recording with Don Harrison (Sons of Freedom) who added the guitar parts and then played that result to Stefan Sigerson who immediately got excited and pushed for more synths in the chorus.  He added in a cool echoey guitar part and a piano line to give it even more depth.  Everything was coming together but the programmed drums seemed to lack the drive I felt was necessary.   To rectify that I called up old friend (and former drummer of my 90's band Pure) Leigh Grant to come in for a recording session.  Leigh just sat down at the kit and immediately played the perfect beat!  I wish I had all my mics ready for his very first listen pass because we could have used it!   In fact I believe it was on his second run through that we got everything down on the hard drives.  A great drummer.


All the parts were on tape and the song had a great deal more energy, which exposed the old vocals, and definitely made them seem out of context.  I'd built such a bigger song around the vocals that they seemed lost and out of place.   Isabelle's vocals by contrast were keepers from the very first session.  Once we'd figured out her harmony line and the outro vocal parts it was just a matter of setting up the mic and pressing record.  My vocals on the other hand took  almost a month to figure out.  A problem with self-production of course, but I needed to explore many different approaches to the lead vocal until I discovered the way it is on record now.  I guess because we had come from such a mellow start it was challenging for me to ramp up the energy.  In the end it took a little bit of enhancement from a few too many drinks to allow me to sing the song.  Quite pleased with it now, so I guess the hours and hours of singing were worth it!

Have a listen and please let us know what you think, and if you like it please share.  We are super excited about these songs, so we both really want them to find their audience!

Thanks for reading and listening,
Mark


Stop Givin Up On Love

I see you questioning, just why am I still here?
it's not as if it's been much fun for a while now.
And even the sunshine is failing to appear
to lift that gloom across your shoulders.
And if I feel the weight of all of what you must endure
I somehow know it makes me stronger
and that tiny spark that lives so deep inside your heart
well we all should make it bolder.

Well the world's not spinning faster
a hundred years for us to master
stop givin up on love
yeah the world's not spinning faster
a thousand years for us to master
stop givin up on love.

It's been a year or two since the last time we saw you
and now computer screens seem to be the best we can do.
I hear you telling me about your broken history
and you know I wish I could be closer to you.
'Cause you're looking back at all that coulda/shoulda been
and feeling tired from misadventures.
and that tiny spark that lives so deep inside your heart
is calling out for a new answer.

Well the world's not spinning faster
a hundred years for us to master
stop givin up on love
yeah the world's not spinning faster
a thousand years for us to master
stop givin up on love.
Well the world's not spinning faster
a million years for us to master
stop givin up on love
yeah the world's not spinning faster
a billion years before we pass her,
stop givin up on love.

You don't have to fall apart chasing all your dreams
You don't have to fall apart, you're closer than it seems

©2015 Combine the Victorious