The songwriting process by Alan Neilson:

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How does a song become a song? When does it start and where does it come from? On this album it came from two places: melodic ideas I had filed away over the years and linking those ideas up with words provided by Kevan. In simplistic terms almost all of the songs on this album started this way. And that is really only a tiny piece of the overall puzzle, because in its most basic form, the song is generally a set of chords with the words sang over it following the top line melody, but the ‘song’ you will hear on the album is not just some words and a tune - that is a foundation on which an arrangement is built.

The music for the songs on the album originated from chord patterns and riffs I had recorded and had been keeping on my hard drive. Each idea came to me over the last ten years while I was playing guitar or piano, not trying to write a song, but trying to find interesting chord progressions or rhythms or riffs. I would then record them on whatever I had near me (cassette, camera, phone etc) and then eventually made a folder that was all of these ideas compiled together in one place, with the chord structures written down next to the sound or video file - sometimes as part of the recording I would say what chords were being used, knowing one day I would need to know this (I have to do this as I do not read or write music in standard notation). This file also contained written lyrical ideas that had popped into my mind as well, either a photo of a scribbled note, or typed up - any possible way that I could ensure these ideas would not get lost. I always thought that at some time I would construct something out of all these odd snippets.

When Kevan asked me to put music to his words in early 2019, this file was my first port of call. I went through each idea with Kevan’s words in front of me to see whether they would work. The thing about a chord pattern is that there is no inherent melody built into it, sometimes a melody is suggested by the modulation from chord to chord, but the chords are not a tune. In those early songwriting sessions I played the chords and tried to find a melody that pulled together the words and the chord structure. Half of the album’s first verses were written like this.

With those initial verse melodies now fitting with the words, each song then had to bloom using those ‘found’ ideas and I had to actually write the song using those as a starting point. Again it was a case of finding a melodic way to move the song along. Sometimes the way Kevan had written his ideas acted as a way of structuring the new sections: for instance, with ‘Focusing the Light’, the first verse melody was taken from an old song of mine ‘Three People’, however, that track only uses the F#m D to B minor chords and just repeats them over and over, with ‘Focusing’ this chord pattern is only used during the first part of the verse. The way Kevan had written out “Draws in the light, pulls in the light, focusing the light” suggests a rhythmic pattern that had to be a part of the song’s rhythm, so I added the necessary parts to follow this. Similarly when Kevan had written the later verses, they were not in the same rhythmic pattern as the first verse, which implied a change in the song’s chord structure. So there we find the chord pattern moving from the F#minor to its relative major A, which then descends by a semitone to an Ab minor.

Kevan’s words were starting points for the songs and I often added my own words where I felt it necessary, or changed his words to fit a melodic line or to make them easier for me to sing. On certain songs, ‘w w w’ for instance, Kevan deliberately wrote half a song’s worth of lyrics in order that I could add my parts to represent my feelings later. On others, I felt that chorus lyrics were needed to give some repetition for a listener to latch onto and so I wrote a chorus, being sensitive to Kevan’s initial concepts.

Many of the songs stayed in the same structure throughout the recording and production stage, but the top line melodies changed on quite a few. On ‘Into the Spirit’ the first draft of the opening line melody, sang over an A major chord, reminded me of something else I had heard and for a while I couldn’t work out what the tune was, but I knew it wasn’t mine. Then I realised, it was Barlow’s opening line to ‘A Million Love Songs’ when he sings “Put your head against my life” (which is such

an awful lyric). As soon as I realised this I had to change it to what you now hear in the album version... it is so much better than Gary’s maudlin, teenage drivel.

‘Peel’ is another song that had numerous top line melody changes but this was to do with keeping a certain vocal energy in the song. The early drafts had a low key vocal line and only after many changes was I able to allow all the emotion in the words to be felt in the vocal.

There was a major change in ‘w w w’ but this came about after our visit to a studio, with a producer giving his advice on how he felt the track’s dynamic flow dropped at a certain place in the song. That made me rethink how best I can capture a listener’s attention throughout a five minute song. This ultimately led to the song being rethought, and a middle section melody being dropped, replaced by a repeat of the first section and a chorus. Later the melody was amended in the new middle section as well. The thing is, I have listened to these songs hundreds of times, and I try to be as objective as I possibly can and try and find those lines where singing it differently will add power. This normally meant opting for a higher note and amending the melody from a descending one to an ascending one. There are a couple of times (like the middle eight in ‘Learning to Lie’) where the original written note was just too high for me to sing comfortably, so I chose a lower note, with the backing vocal hitting the high note.

It is amazing to me to remember the journey these songs have taken, and that all of them changed from the original blueprint of the song, to the final arrangement. Many times I considered a song to be complete only later to either rework it altogether or add a section, or words, or a chorus. Thankfully, as the album was recorded on computer in my home studio, I had time to do this and the software allowed me to manipulate the parts easily - I couldn't have produced the album as it is if I had still being using tape, as I would have had to rerecord the whole song again or physically splice tape to insert new sections and lines. This technique has been used in the past of course in studios around the world (like Phill Brown had to do for Talk Talk) but the digital studio really is the perfect arrangement and compositional tool.

There were many lyric changes and these even happened during the actual recording of the vocal. This is because, as a singer you know when some words sound good together or not - you feel it in your mouth shape and sometimes you can’t get the words out quick enough, or there are too many soft or hard consonants together. When you hear it played back, in your head, you know whether it feels right. When it didn’t I would find a better way of singing it, even if it meant changing a few words.

I really feel that the finished album is the absolute best work I could have produced. On some of my earlier solo releases I was less critical of my performances and left errors in the final mix and when I hear them now I wish I could go back in and correct them. With this album I agonised over every note, word, performance and redid anything that didn’t feel or sound right - sometimes this did take an independent set of ears to point out there were timing issues or tuning issues - and afterwards I went back in to every track and made them better. I am now satisfied with what me and Kevan have made here, and want to share this with anyone who wants to listen, because music should be shared.