I’m finding FAWM difficult this year.
Admittedly, I found it difficult to find the time last year as well, but this year is particularly difficult.
I’ve managed one song, called Rattle your Jewellery. Here it is:
Download Rattle Your Jewellery
And to be honest, the writing of it was entirely a paint by numbers affair. I used this lovely album cover generator to find a random title. That gave me ‘Rattle Your Jewellery’ which I started messing around with, eventually come up with the first two lines sung over an A Minor chord.
Then I hit a brick wall. What was I going to write? The words seemed to be saying something about empty beauty, the idea of being nothing but your jewellery. So I jotted down some lyrics, all in one take (I still haven’t revised them) and set about filling in the blanks, musically.
It sounded vaguely folky, so I tried using minor folk chords A minor D minor E minor. That sounded too nice, so I added extra notes – a B pedal note, a minor seventh on the D minor and both an F sharp and C sharp in the E minor.
That gave me a verse. How to stretch it out into a whole song? Three verses, with very similar lyrics, a bridge that ended on an E7 to take us into the third verse, plus some A minor noodling with the guitar.
That’ll do, I thought, hit the record button and played the thing in one take, which is what you can hear above.
I’m not too proud of it. I find the best songs always turn up when you’re not trying to write them. It’s usually better therefore to create the situation where inspiration can flow and be caught, rather than trying to force a song.
This song was forced, and it feels that way to me.
Nevertheless, I don’t think it’s a bad song.
Ideas to steal:
Avoid chords sounding everyday by adding unexpected chromatic notes. Got an E minor chord? Stick a C sharp in it!
Use common structures. A A B A can be a real boon if you have an effective verse but can’t think of a chorus.
Instrumental passages can hide a multitude of sins. Seriously, if you’re not sure what should happen next, just throw in a guitar solo!
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