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End of the Rainbow

That damned cat's at the door
You'd think that he never gets fed
He keeps scratching away
Guess I'll get myself out of bed

The morning drive still an hour away
Waiting for the coffee to kick in
And for the day to begin

You say "Have a nice day" and give me a smile
I say "See you in a while"

You and me, just like falling leaves (just like leaves falling from trees)
Now those storms that blew us round are just a breeze (storms will die away)

After work, down to the park for a walk
Watching the ducks and the kids on the swings as we talk (as we talk)

The same old thing makes a perfect day (perfect day)
Like my favorite song I wait for the radio to play (radio plays)
Sharing with you each simple thing (simple thing)
Wondering what the next day will bring (what the day will bring)

You and me (you and me)
At the end of a rainbow (at the rainbow)
Finally made it to the eye of the storm

Now the sun is sinking down
You're warm in bed with a book
But our "happily ever after"
Turned out to be much harder than it looked (looked, it looked)

Taking out the trash, putting dishes away
Glad that life is finally so boring and ordinary (finally ordinary)

Days (the days go by) after the storm (the storms will pass)
Finally found a place to stay
That's safe and warm
Safe, safe at last


Instruments
1569:Bass, Electric, Soul60sA-B Ev 110
2810:Piano, Acoustic, Rhythm SmoothSoulFast16thsMike Ev16 110
1570:Guitar, Electric, Rhythm Soul60sHighBackBeat Ev 110
1155:Organ, B3, Rhythm Reggae Ev16 100
1950:Piano, Acoustic, Soloist PopRootsyJohn Ev16 100 (Bluesy)
1404: Guitar, Electric, Rhythm Soul70sWarmA-B Ev16 100
1407: Piano, Acoustic, Rhythm Soul70sA-B Ev16 100
1410: Piano, SynthLayer, Rhythm Soul70sA-B Ev16 100
Loop: HipHop\Old School - gangstar_beat_95b drums ev16.wav
RealDrums: Soul70sPercEv16^
RealDrums :Soul60sEv^
Vocals: Synthesizer V - Eleanor Forte (Lite)

Mix Chain
Master: Ozone Imager 2 -> Lurssen Mastering Console
Lead Vocal: Synthesizer V -> Greg Wells VoiceCentric -> Goodhertz Vulf Compressor -> Sunset Sound Studio (Room)
Lead Vocal Apiration: SpitFish De-Esser
Harmony Vocal: Synthesizer V -> Greg Wells VoiceCentric -> Raum Reverb
Harmony Vocal Apiration: SpitFish De-Esser
Drums: ReaEQ -> Goodhertz Vulf Compressor
Bass: Scheps Omni Channel EQ
Organ: JS Tremolo -> TrackSpacer -> Vulf Compressor
Piano: TrackSpacer
Synth: JS Tremolo -> TrackSpacer


Blah-bitty Blah Blah Blah
This started from the _RECTIFY demo. I changed the key, changed the chords - the standard stuff.

When I assembled the song, I thought that I'd have the standard repeating chorus, so once I put the chorus together, I could just cut and paste that part in.

Oh, best laid plans. How you go awry.

Actually writing the lyric proved a much more difficult than it should have. The backing suggested a happy sort of song, which is probably the most difficult kind for me to write. I mean, everything's great, what's to sing about? (Yes, I know: I should take a cue from Noel's songs).

I had in mind something along the lines of America's "All Around" - maybe someone going for a walk reflecting on the day. But the motivation for the song - the "who" is walking, and "what's happening to them" just didn't come. I think this reflects a lack of curiosity about other people on my part. I've got a tough enough time figuring out my own life without having to create mental models for other people. I spent the last two weeks watching all three seasons of Hinterland hoping I could crib idea from there, but since it's one of those murder-y shows, that didn't help.

Still, I enjoyed the series.

While I prefer to make sure that anything in my songs that's based on my own life is heavily fictionalized, I do have a cat named Harry who wakes my up every morning scratching on my bedroom door. So I guess I can thank him for the song. Once I got a start, I was able to slog through in a linear fashion. Each chorus required their own set of lyrics, leaving me to curse at myself for my foolishness. Especially when I got to the final chorus, and I was completely stuck.

I initially was going to have the singer be single, and the first verse he had an imaginary conversation:

You'd say "Have a nice day" and give me a smile
I'd say "See you in a while"

But that didn't scan well, and it added complexity to the narrative. So I replaced the "imaginary" person with an actual person, and moved on to the second verse, skipping the chorus. It's never a good sign when you're writing the song without the chorus!

Breaking the verses by time seemed the most obvious choice, and singing about work is boring, and requires too much work to set up a narrative with little payoff. So off to the park for verse two. This is the point where I finally figured out the point of the song - drama in a relationship sucks.

Still no chorus in sight, but I did come up with the lyrics "we reached the end of the rainbow", so figured that the other chorus would be variations on that theme.

For the final chorus, I tried to touch on the bits of emotional conflict that hadn't yet been said. Finding a rhyme with "ordinary" turned out to be a pain, because I'd been using /ay/ sorts of rhymes. I finally cheated and went with the near rhyme "finally" figuring that they both ended with the long /e/ sound. Close enough!

That got the verses completed, but no choruses. I fleshed out the "end of the rainbow" idea for one verse. A "storm" is associated with rainbows, so hurrah - thematic continuity.

Since I was completely brain-dead by this point, the final chorus had me completely stumped. I finally decided to crib a lyric from Steely Dan's "Home At Last", which borrowed the idea from Homer's "The Odyssey", so I doubt Donald Fagan will be sending his lawyers.

The vocal needed a lot of tuning - getting the male vocal to sound consistent in the lower registers is a bit of a balancing act. I'm sure it could be better, but better to get something out the door than fiddle with it forever.

Yes, it probably needs a de-esser. I tried to err on the side of intelligibility.

I then brought it into Reaper to assemble and mix. My son listened to the initial rough and fiddled with the drums and bass. I wasn't sure that I was going to add harmony to this one, but my son suggested that the song was pretty much the same all the way through. I lied to myself and said that if I added harmony, I wouldn't have to create a better arrangement.

So I went back to Synthesizer V to work out a harmony part. I was initially going to do add a male voice singing a simple harmony part in 3rds and 6ths. But I had a headache, and I lost the chord sheet. There are some "interesting" chord choices in the song, so getting the harmony to work out took a bit of doing. If I was going to do that much work, I figured I'd do something more fun than parallel harmony. A couple ibuprofen later, the harmony was done.

At that point, it started sounding a bit more like a song.

I then went back to BiaB to find additional instruments to add to the track to add some variety. Then it was a matter of removing instruments in various parts, and adding others to (hopefully) create hills and valleys in the arrangement.

Mix, mix and mix some more.

Edit: I mentioned on the Synth V forum that I really should have used a de-esser, and someone pointed out that the vocal can automatically be split between the harmonic (voiced) and inharmonic (unvoiced) portions. Which was really cool, because putting it on another track means that never hits the compressor and can be added back in to sound more natural. So I've made some changes and re-uploaded the file.


All comments welcome!