“I can’t remember anything beyond these four walls.
So many colors I’ve never seen.
Sometimes I smell a story from a tiny crack in the wall.
I can sense all the stories outside.
Even though it’s just a wall between us, we are worlds away.
I hear rumors in the wind from time to time.
An endless ocean.
A snowy mountain top.
A city full of more people than even those who dwell in her streets could fathom.
These are just rumors.
I dare not believe them.
One day I saw a bird through the crack in the wall.
At first I was shocked.
Who or what would ever want to make my acquaintance?
But she did.
She made herself known to me.”
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Above is a rough draft of a concept for a song. Recently I’ve been trying to write lyrics by imagining a very descriptive scenario and then seeing how that scenario might be expressed in a song.
There’s a little more to it but that’s all I’d like to say of the purpose and meaning behind these songs for now.
I’ve decides to undertake the massive task of organizing all my old and new demos and trying to develop an EP or album with a very specific concept out of them.
I have somehwere between 200-300 demos to dig through. Some are repeats or different versions of existing songs I’ve written but around a third of them are original unpolished work, songs asking to be written.
Which one’s do we do the honor? Well that depends on what we want to say.
I see a more mature song writing process beginning to emerge. Rather than just wait for inspiration to come, I’ve figured out a specific process that invites it and speeds it up.
First is the idea phase which is actually neverending. Imagine the ocean. It is always there. I save ideas when I have them and I have them all the time.
Then I go through and try to identify some emerging themes. I will fleah out an idea for a theme, something that feels like it wants to be expressed out of the ingredients presented through ideas I’ve accumulated.
From there I spend time with each song and figure out what specifically they are expressing and let a story tell itself through my fingers.
From there I chip away like a sculptor trying to create a beautiful piece from what’s laid out in front of me.
What I’ve shared above is clearly attempt to sculpt out a general idea of the shape without it’s details and nuance.
I hope to have at least 5 of these ready before I present them in a mature form. So far, I’ve only gotten the general shape of two songs of them but the overlying concept for the whole project is very very clear.
I am not sure how long this process will take, especially because I’m not able to do this full time, but I hope to get all the concepts written in the next week or two and have lyrics for most of the project ready before the middle of September.
From there I’ve still got to polish and record the songs but it would be very nice and completely manageable to put out another EP this year, more polished and comfortable than the last one.
MV’s for two songs off “Sun Shone Blue” by I+Everything:
“Mirror” by I+Everything MV
“Art vs. Artist” by I+Everything MV
