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Nothing's Changed

you say nothing's changed, it's all the same
but the same day will never come again
it's been and gone

so there's no going back for us
it's the same way
we no longer seem to get along

i see the river burning bright
just another sign our world's on fire
it seems no way to set it right and too late to turn around
the net is gone, we're dancing on a wire

   it's a hard ground, let's not go tumbling down
   our house of cards, like london bridge, is falling down
   it's a game that takes two to play
   but only one to walk away

little children play, calling names, pointing fingers
but never taking blame when things go wrong

and we act just the same
who's to blame?
it's the same game
we know who's the one to blame it on

maybe it's easier to fight, turn away, and close our eyes

if we both try to set it right before it all comes down
will we lose anything except a little pride?

   [repeat chorus]

you say nothing's changed
it's the same
it's the same
well, maybe that's the thing that's going wrong

Instruments
SynthV (Arama)
SynthV (Felicia 2, Sheena 2)

1842:Synth Pad, PopModernGrooveA-B Ev16 075
3150:Mandola, Background AmericanaFolk16thsAndy ev16 060
~2503:Piano, Acoustic, HeldChords 085
~~487:Piano, Acoustic, Rhythm Jazz Ballad Sw 085
2509:Cello, Background PopEven Ev 120 (1TrackStringQuartet)
2511:Violin, Background PopEvenHigh Ev 120 (1TrackStringQuartet)
2510:Viola, Background PopEven Ev 120 (1TrackStringQuartet)
Bass: Ibanez Gio (me playing)
RealDrums: PopPinkCandyElec^3-a:Snare , b:HardSnareClap
Drum Overlay: UJAM Hot

Effects
Main Buss: Curves AQ (Mix), Lurssen Mastering Console (EDM Warmer), HoRNet Tape (Swiss 15 IPS)
Lead Vocal: UAD LA02A (Ballad Vocal), Greg Wells VoiceCentric (Collar Grab Vocal), Capital Chambers (Vocal Main)
Lead Vocal FX: JS Delay With Tempo (Ping Pong)
Backing Vocal: Greg Wells VoiceCentric (Background), Capital Chambers (Chorus Vox Wide)
Bass: Ghz Vulf Compressor, EZMix 3 (Classic 8x10 Bass Amp)
Guitar: No FX
Piano: No FX
Piano 2: ReaEQ (High Pass), Finisher Micro (Flanger), Finisher Flux (Autopan Heaven)
Drum: Curves AQ
Drum FX: Finisher Dynamo (Backbeater)
Drum Overlay: No FX (using drum's built-in reverb)
Overlay Drum FX: Finisher Dynamo (Backbeater)
Mandola: Sound City Studios (Acoustic Guitar Ambience)
Mandola FX: UFX Delay (Doubling), Raum (Airy)
Synth Pad: Finsher Flux (Stringasm), Valhalla Vintage Verb (Concert Hall)
String Trio: Tape Mello-Fi (Subtle Width), Sound City (Ensemble - Strings)

The Story

Feel free to skip this bit. All comments welcome!

This was one of those songs that I didn't think would ever get finished. I'm still rewriting lyrics, and I may change the title as well. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

As usual, I looked through the style demos until I found something that I liked. CLIMB caught my ear - it had a fairly modern drum sound, and very cool mandola. It was also in a minor key, which was something I haven't used much.

I changed up the chords quite a bit. I avoided major 7th chords (although there are a few) and did a couple temporary modulations to try to keep things interesting. There are some neat inversions, and the chorus is in major to contrast with the minor verses.

Well, the mostly minor key verses. The first verse is in A minor, but the second (or maybe it's the prechorus) shifts to A major just because.

I then rendered out a backing track and imported into SynthV to work out a melody. I had purchased a new voice called "Amara", and decided I'd like to feature it on a song, so I used that. She's got a R&B sort of voice, but that's not really in my wheelhouse, or where the song went. But why let that stop me?

I did my typical "outline the chord tones" when working out the melody. But that's a problem with a lot of my melodies - they have lots of skips. So I went back and simplified the melody so there were a lot more repeated notes, which is more typical in pop music.

I went through a lot of ideas for lyrics, but none of them seemed right for this song. The problem with writing the lyrics last for me is that it's a process of trying to figure out who the narrator is, and what they would be talking about. So it's mostly a matter of listening again and again, trying to figure out what words match the mood of the music.

After about a week or more, I finally decided to just power through and write something, no matter how terrible it seemed. That got me the opening lyrics, but they lacked the sort of thing that songwriting instruction text tell you they should have, like images that set the time and place, or something compelling that grabs the interest of the listener.

But at least I had a POV and tone of voice, so yay, progress! I figured that I'd eventually replace those lyrics, but of course I didn't. However, I'm still re-writing them, even as I type this.

The only non-cliche line in the song is probably:

   I see a river burning bright

And that is a reference to the Cuyahoga River catching fire years ago. Because yeah, that makes sense in a song like this, right?

I went to RhymeZone looking for something that would rhyme with "fire", and ended up with "high wire". Yeah, it's been used many, many times. The Alan Parsons Project song immediately sprang to mind. But by this point I was ready to to embrace cliches, so after a bit of wordsmithing, the first verse was mostly complete.

It was time to start working on the chorus. But as usual, the melody I'd written didn't sound much like a chorus at all. So I went back to BiaB and changed some chords to make them a bit more pedestrian, and then listened to to songs to get an idea of what a real chorus sounded like.

As I start putting phrases into the chorus, I found I was using nursery rhyme elements - something I've done before. But while I was treading over old ground here, I was also getting desperate to finally get this song done, so I took what I could get. The idea of that and children taunting each other on the playground seemed material enough to fill the second verse.

I finally got to the core of the song when I came up with this lyric while I was - of all things - doing the dishes:

   it's a game / it takes two to play
   but only one / to walk away

With the core idea in place, it was pretty much a matter of just rewriting the first verses into the second verses. Fortunately for me, while getting ideas is painfully slow, rewriting is relatively easy.

At this point I considered: Is there a need for another verse? Structurally, it's rather short. But I'm not sure I've got anything left to say. I toyed around with the idea of putting in a bridge, but laziness struck hard. Instead, I decided to use an modified version of the first verse.

I thought about putting in a short instrumental, and then repeating chorus, before the final tag. I haven't ruled it out.

With the song lyrically complete, I'm faced with a problem: there's no obvious title for the song. That's a big red flag that I should go back and rewrite things. But I'm going to punt on it and maybe revisit it later.

Time for the fun part - harmonies! Staggered counterlines don't really make much sense, so I just duplicated the melody and then dragged the notes to chord tones, adding passing tones where it made sense. Then I did it again and added a top line. Nothing very fancy, so I added some counter lines.

Next, it's time to render out the vocals from SynthV and BiaB, and start mixing in the DAW. I hadn't rendered the mandola to the backing track for SynthV, because I wanted to make sure the vocals would stand by themselves. The mandola sounds really cool, so I'm pretty sure I won't need much on the track.

But the next morning, I decided that the tempo feels a bit rushed, and decide to change it from 90 BPM to 87 BPM. All the tracks are re-rendered in BiaB and SynthV, and I add a bunch more guitars, basses and pianos so I have more to choose from. The guitars are a bit too busy with some of the passing chords, so I removed the passing chords in BiaB and rendered the simplified guitars.

I threw Curves AQ on most of the tracks and let the AI offer up some EQs. Is it better than using a preset? I can't really tell, but I paid money for the plugin, I'm using it. The ping-pong effect is from Reaper, but I used a bunch of UJAM Finisher effects because I'd just bought them.

The ending effect comes from playing with UFX Delay and the Raum reverb.

I wanted to start with a simpler drum part, but couldn't edit the hi-hat out, and a low-pass filter didn't do the trick. The simplest solution was to just automate the drum volume.

My daughter suggested that the harmonies were a bit loud, so I dialed them down lower than I usually do. It made me sad, but she's probably right.

There are a relatively small number of tracks on this song. The string trio is buried behind the synth strings, so it's not even clear it needs to be there at all. The second piano is just to add a bit of shimmer and interest, and sits behind the main piano.

I'll probably go back and re-do the bass, possibly putting in a MIDI bass or just playing it myself.

Like my prior song, I put this one out before it's before it's 100% polished, so there's a good chance I'll be updating the track as time goes on.

Hopefully other people's songwriting processes are faster than this.

Thanks for getting this far! Again, all comments are appreciated.

Edit 1: I replaced the line "Now I'm looking back at us" with "So there's no going back for us" because it was the same line The Indigo Girls used in "Closer to Fine". That's what I get for making a last-minute change to a lyric late at night just before posting the song.

Edit 2: I changed the bass and added a drum overlay on the verses. So I guess the song title is no longer accurate. I'll should eventually clean up some places where the bass is too busy. Credit to floyd jane for pointing out this needed work!

Edit 3: The mandola is now duplicated up an octave with some FX added to it to give is sparkle. The main piano has a high pass filter on it, and is run through some FX to give it sparkle, too. The guitar was muddying up the mix in the chorus, so I chopped some chords out of it and removed the FX on it. Credit again to floyd jane if it sounds better, otherwise blame me. (These aren't as drastic changes as the prior ones)

David - I can barely get my head around how you (& BDT f. ex.) manage to come up with such elaborate productions & songs,
excellent lyrics and mega use of synth voices (all beyond me). Love the subtle use of the mandola and other BB files - the overall
arrangement is really excellent, great chord structure too!
You did a FAB job on this track - super well done,

Carl

David,

Great song. Love the voices and the selection of tracks. Those drums sound excellent.

You put an immense amount of work into this and it clearly shows. Awesome mix.

As always, I enjoy all of your work. Excellent stuff!

Bob

Hi David,

I love the mandola, the progression of the chorus and especially the lyrics of it with the nursery rhyme bits. Really suits. You seem to have showed more restraint with the vocals than in your last couple of tunes and its all easier for this ear to follow. I think your daughter made a good call too. I get it that it's a work in progress, how fed up with a song one can get, and that urge just wanting to get it out there. It's actually really helpful to hear songs in various different stages and also really interesting to read about your whole thought process, so thanks for including that bit too.

Hi David! I read your narrative before listening and glad I did. Cool to hear the journey you’ve been on with this one. Glad I’m not the only one that ‘just want to get this thing done’.

The chord progression and melody is instantly pleasing to listen to, but intricate enough that I’m gonna have to listen to that again to fully absorb it. I’m not a strong lyrics man so have nothing to offer in that regard.

I’m going off to listen again before I continue writing. [goes off to listen again] …
**** Likes, and adds to Playlist ****
[comes back again]

Yep, that minor to major is beautiful, and love those mandola fills, and I love that fade out at the end as well.

Andrew

David,

Outstanding production work here . . . clean, creative and engaging. Very smart write . . . love the use of internal rhymes throughout. Catchy chorus. And, no surprise, killer use of the vocaloids. Brilliant!!

Deej

This sounds really cool, David. That mandola IS quite nice and your new vocalist is sweetly non-theatrical, a huge plus from my perspective. That late shift to a major key chorus is very cool, too. Your narrative led me to expect something a little rough around the edges, but this is quite smooth and shiny, and sounds GREAT. You've squeezed a lot of musical excitement in 2:46!

It's interesting to hear all the key changes; they add a lot to the song.
I'll have to try that myself sometime.

Good, clean arrangement with a good choice of instruments (I even like the Mandola) in a transparent mix.
Arama (who I didn't know) sounds good to me, and I really like the harmonies in the chorus (that's Felicia, right?).
I'm not entirely convinced by the snare sound; I think something more organic would suit it better.
But I really like your song, and thanks for all the details about your songwriting process - I LOVE reading that stuff

David, I liked everything about this song. Super groove and chord progression. Outstanding work with those synth voices. Great backing band and mix.
Loved it.

HA! Just as I was reading how you didn't use Maj7th chords I heard one. Yeah, I felt free to skip The Story, but knew I'd enjoy it. It also had me play this cool song 3 times while reading. Man, David, we could talk for hours and hours about all this. We not only have the RhymeZone in common, but most everything you write about.

Okay, the 4th listen was not distracted by The Story... Man, there is some great changes going on in there. What an incredible job, first in picking the band, and even more amazing was in the mix. So much going on, but nothting goes on unnoticed.

I enjoyed reading your thoughts concerning the write.
I like that you think long and hard about your choices.

Lovely vocals and harmonies.

I really like the piano and mandola.
The drums choice is interesting. (Interesting is an interesting word, don;t you think?)

I ALWAYS enjoy your songs/productions/musings...
I think I've listened 5 times now...



fj

David,
Wow, what a detailed song summary!
Super chord progression here. Good balance between acoustic / electronic instruments. Clear mix and listens well. Two points:
I believe you might want to consider d-esser on main vocals. Maybe second harmony vocals slightly lower. Thank you for sharing.
Misha.

Hi, Carl.

Thanks!

The answer to "how to you do it" is mostly... It's the only way I know how.

I suspect I'd save a lot of time if I'd just start with the lyrics, but too many times I've been stuck trying to set them to a backing track that I wasn't happy with at all. So I approach it as if I were trying to discover a song inside of the BiaB tracks. The advantage there is that I can be lazy and let the tracks guide the melody, so BiaB does a lot of heavy lifting for me.

Thanks again!

Hi, Bob.

Thanks! That's one of the things that attracted me to the style.

However... I'm getting suggestions from those who are more familiar with the style that perhaps a different sort of snare is called for here. So I'm going to do some experimenting with that.

I'm starting to think they key to a good mix is use less tracks, but there's so much cool stuff in BiaB it's really hard not to go overboard. Hopefully I'll keep this in mind in future tracks.

Thanks again for your kind words! I really appreciate it.

Hi, Beth.

I'm glad to hear it!

Point taken!

It's fun to have a big, bombastic song, so I went a bit (or maybe way) overboard the last time. I'll try to keep my exuberant tendencies reined in.

You're welcome. I think frustration is a normal part of any creative process, because we're being forced to go outside our normal thought process. Songwriting is an interesting combination - a bit of storytelling, a bit of puzzle solving, and often just hard work.

Thanks for listening and commenting!

Hi, Andrew.

I suspect that many of us go on similar paths when writing songs. When things are easy, it's fun and sort of magical. When it's not, well... it's a bit of a grind.


The chorus is pretty straight forward, but the verse is:

A- | G/D / C/D D-7 | A- / / G/A | A- Cmaj7
A- | G/D / / D-| A- / / E– | A- / A-/F A-/G
A| G/D / A/C# A-/C| Bbmaj7 / Asus D- | E- E7/G#
A- / / C/G | G/D / A Fmaj7 | G-7/F / Eb Ebmaj7 | Asus Fmaj7

This bit was an attempt to walk the bass down to lead into the A major chord:

... A- / A-/F A-/G| A ...

Once there, I shift out of A major and use the bass to emphasize the change:

... A | G/D / A/C# A-/C ...

The bass descent continues, with the shift from the Emin to E clarified by the bass movement:

... Bbmaj7 / Asus D- | E- E7/G# | A- / / C/G ...

I repeat the A Fmaj7 move twice here. The Asus is a (mostly ineffective) way to give it a bit more motion. I'd originally been playing with diminished chords, but they didn't work as well as I'd liked:

... A Fmaj7 | G-7/F / Eb Ebmaj7 | Asus Fmaj7 ...

Hopefully that explains the logic of the progression.

Thanks for listening and commenting!

Hi, Deej.

Thanks! I appreciate the positive feedback!

Hi, Ron.

OK, I clearly went overboard with the last song.

But thanks! The mandola is super-cool, and it was fun working with a new vocalist and trying to figure what would work with her.

Heh. It looks like I need to revisit the bass and drums, and I haven't ruled out adding an instrumental section, although no one's suggested it's needed.

I'm glad you enjoyed it!

Hi, B.D.

Looking into writings about The Beatles songwriting got me into this. I'm not trying to emulate The Beatles, I'm just trying to force myself to try something different.

Where they are most effective is where most people don't hear them, but I haven't got that level of skill yet.

I'll have to give credit to whoever made the style I based the song on for that. Love the mandola, and it was hard not to put it everywhere.

Arama is a new voice that came out last month. It's got a nice tone and expressiveness. Less vocal modes than most SynthV voices, but I didn't feel anything was missing.

The backing vocals are Felicia and Sheena.

Ha!

I figured it would be safe to use because it was part of the style, but I've gotten pushback on it from a number of people. I really like it, but I don't really have ears for contemporary music. I'll play around with other options.

You're welcome! I suspect a lot of people can relate to it, because we're songwriters.

Thanks for the feedback - I appreciate it!

Hi, Mario.

Thanks!

I appreciate you listening and commenting.