The End Of The Affair and Song Adolescence
let them make their mistakes
I don’t want to bore you with how happy I am to be here. But I will. Since posting my first substack last Saturday, Patterns in Repeat has gathered over 3000 subscribers. I’m over the moon. This past week, every daydream has presented itself in substack font. All I’ll say is - I so look forward to continuing this…thing. Still unsure as to what exact form it will take (aside from The Tarot Of Songwriting - which will come out every two weeks), but there’s lots to share, and for once, because of the medium, I really look forward to sharing it.
As for you FOUNDING MEMBERS, my goodness, thank you. I realised I should have added a survey to your welcome email to gather your address’ (for sending a thank you in the mail) - Stand by while I figure out how to do that - I’m assured by the powers that be (substack) that it can be done retroactively.
For paid subscribers - I will be doing guitar tutorials, but this week, I lost my voice to a cold induced by the stunning British summer - but on the mend now and so enjoying reacquainting myself with old tunings in preparation for future tutorials. TBC
In lieu of a tutorial, and not being able to record a version of an old song, I scanned through my voice notes from around the time of writing my seventh album, Song For Our Daughter, and found some potentially interesting stuff there, which I’d like to talk about.
Firstly, I’m a very harsh critic. I find myself thinking a lot lately about how the tyranny of niceness has castrated reasonable criticism, especially in music. If the person is nice, they basically can’t be criticised. Not a problem for me, and largely why I’m so enjoying watching Charlie XCX have her well deserved moment while playing with this idea. It’s also why I’ve so enjoyed working with theatre director, Robert Icke, who pulls literally zero punches when it comes to giving opinions. I love it.
Incoming obligatury banality - my harshest criticism is, of course, reserved for my own work. Bluh, it’s done.
I can demonstrate this with these two versions of the songs that would eventually become The End of The Affair, from my album, Song For Our Daughter:
The first I titled “Calling Time” - firstly, it’s long and boring. Secondly, it repeats the same sentiment lyrically twice. And over all, it feels to me to be silacious in a teenage way. This suggests to me that it came from an undeveloped emotional place. There are moments, particularly in the guitar, that hit accurately the more complex emotional realm I would hope to access with a song. I guess I knew it wasn’t in its final form because this was recorded in August 2017 and I never bothered recording it again. Good ones get played and recorded over and over to make sure I remember them.
In July 2019, however, appears another version, titled “Max” (I’d like to stress here that all names in songs are chosen purely for their singabilty…no further comment, speak to my lawyer). Nearly two years pass, and here arrives this much-improved butterfly from its crooked cocoon. The lyrics now move succinctly through a story that draws towards their landing with the guitar on the songs emotional climax. I had entirely forgotten that first naive version, but finding them both here on my voicenotes allows me to see exactly how the gestation occurred. In the time between the two versions I had read The End Of The Affair (Graham Greene), and it had clearly educated the developementally arrested emotion within me that had attempted to write the first one. A few lyrical and melodic changes were made after this as the song landed on its final form, consecrated by the album recording in november of 2019, though listening to this version, I’m not convinced the final version that much better than this.