This week, I'm sharing a track called "Elephant In The Room" from my upcoming album, which should be out this fall.
Most of the time when I write songs, I start off by playing something on the guitar or piano, then come up with some sort of melody on top of it, then add lyrics. This song is a little different, in that I had the melody in my head and come up with lyrics before I even picked up a guitar. Then, I kind of figured out what the chords were gonna be after the fact. I think because of this, the melody is a little stronger than some of my other songs.
I always thought the phrase "elephant in the room" was sort of funny expression. The image I get in my head of an actual elephant is sort of cartoony like dumbo or something and I thought it made an interesting phrase for a song. I think most of us can relate to being in awkward situations where people sort of pretend things are normal when they aren't. I also liked the idea of using other phrases that have both a literal image and metaphorical meaning so I say things like "sitting on my hands" and "holding my tongue" and "getting under my skin" - phrases that we say all the time but don't really think about literally but they all kind of fit with the theme.
As I thought more about the arrangement for the studio recording, the Kelly Clarkson song "Since U Been Gone" came to mind. I specially like the guitar strums and drum machine at the beginning and how big and catchy the chorus is.
That was sort of the idolized type of pop arrangement I had in my head. I quickly realized I don't really have the vocal power to pull it off plus the production was a bit outside my usual territory. As worked on it, it sort of morphed into sounding a bit more like Nada Surf.
With those two influences in mind, I think I was able to come up with something fairly catchy that both fit my vocals and stayed true to my sound.
Episode 48