The electrical cabinet near our house is next to the route that a lot of kids and teens take when going back and forth to school.
I was walking our dogs one evening and I saw that someone had written "SYDÄN SURUA" on it, meaning "aching of the heart" or "heartbreak". The direct translation is "heart grieves".
Next to that someone else had written "ELÄMÄ KEHITTYY" which translates to "life evolves".
That was such a beautiful thought and an act of compassion from one stranger to another that it inspired this song.
I turned 40 on February 3rd and I usually have done some sort of "what have I learned from life" song on that day. I didn't this time, I just ate cake.
It anyway seems like most of my songs this year have a rather personal touch but let's say that this is the "birthday song" then.
Oh and look, I accidentally got the body part challenge.
***
On songwriting and production:
The chorus started to play in my head first. Tried to find something Rhodes-like for that but NI's Lo-Fi Glow library had this. The drums are from Ujah VICE, which is a drum library for...*drumroll* 80's stuff. And then there's of course an FM synth sound from FM8.
The bass guitar has chorus and I used Neural's John Petrucci guitar plugin (14 days of free trial!) to get the 80's fusion guitar and the guitar solo tone.
(The plugin does not, however, give you the playing skills of John Petrucci.)
The whole mix has been run through XLN Audio's RC-20 Retro Color to get some cassette vibe on it.
Also: I was first going to have an actual end to this song but then I remembered that basically all songs like this have to end in a fade out.
Verse 1:
I thought I never would get past the
first time
my heart was put in a blender
the romance that I had in my head
was actually a dead-ender
right at the crossroads of my wretched life
I went and met someone other
three months later when I trusted again
I was dropped just a little bit harder
Chorus:
heart breaks
heart shakes
heart grieves
but life evolves
heart weeps
heart aches
heart grieves
but life evolves
Verse 2:
I thought that I would never get past that
thought I’d be forever in a dark pit
But it turns out that the heart is a muscle
it seems to grow when you train it
sometimes you gotta let the dominoes fall
just to see what happens then
and it turns out that it is nothing at all
you just become a bit stronger
Chorus x 2
Guitar Break
Chorus etc.
@bandybum Feb 2022
Delightful sentiment drawn from your neighbourhood.
You've nailed the 80s synth pop feel perfectly.
It's a fab guitar solo (reminds me of ZZ Top's Rough Boy).
The song ended 20 minutes ago, but the chorus is still playing in my head as I'm washing the dishes. Mission accomplished!
@leka Feb 2022
Sweet solo sound! 80s pop suits you.
@juoppis Feb 2022
@plushbaby's idea was so good that I put up a new bounce right away. Thanks for that!
@plushbaby Feb 2022
The 80s vibes hit hard here and I love it, the production is spot on and has enough difference to make it interesting. This chorus is so great, I love the melody. One thing I might play around with is the variation to the chorus, could you take away the production and let it sit on it's own for a while? Love the guitar solo too, great stuff!
@celineellis Feb 2022
I love where you got the inspiration for this!!! great 80's pop feel - i really like the change in line length from verse to chorus, really helps make that chorus land