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When K-Dub Ya, our friend Mike and I met for our usual songwriting jam, it was my turn to nominate a challenge, and I proposed our next project was to write a song with a story.

For a lengthier telling of how this song was written and recorded, please see down below.

PRODUCTION
I used two RealStyles for this song - changing to the other style using Bar Settings:

Verse and bridge style is _PICKIT.STY (Pick It Up Ska Trio)

RealTracks in style: 3489:Bass, Electric, SkaPunkPopAB Ev 180
RealDrums in style:SkaFastPopWes^1-a:Snare, HiHat , b:Snare, Open Hat

Chorus style is _BUSTER.STY (Buster Ska Punk)
RealDrums in style: SkaFastPopWes^3-a:Snare, Open Hat , b:Snare, Ride :Wes Little
RealTrack in style: 3489: Bass, Electric, SkaPunkPopAB Ev 180 , Brian Allen

Also:
RealTracks in song: ~~686:Organ, B3, Background Pop Ev 120

Me:
Rhythm guitar x 2 – verses, intro, outro, bridge replacing RealTrack in style: 3493:Guitar, Electric, Rhythm SkaFastPop Ev16 180
Fingerpicked guitar – verse 3
Distorted rhythm guitar – chorus and motif replacing RealTrack in style: 3494 (Guitar, Electric, Rhythm SkaFastPunk Ev16 180
Vocal doubled

Mixed in Reaper
Video created in Clipchamp

LYRICS
VERSE 1
Leaving work, I caught the seven-o-five home
Busier than usual - only one seat left
Next to a man with a chips and gravy
I was hungry as a horse
The train rocked to and fro and so did his gravy – over my hair and shirt
“I’m sorry – let me repay you” “No that’s okay, you’ve done quite enough.”

CHORUS
And that’s how I came to smell like gravy
Doesn’t matter whether chicken or beef
It got stuck in my hair – all thick and wavy
And I wanted to get some relief

VERSE 2
I got off at my stop, eager to get home
Walking down the lane all dark and dingy
I could hear steps, someone gaining on me
So I quickened my pace and so did they
I took a short cut through the wrecker’s yard – hoping to avoid the dog
But the dog smelled gravy so I jumped the fence but my trousers got caught on the wire

CHORUS
And that’s how I came to be without pants
On that cold and windy night
I didn’t give that fence a second glance
As I got myself up and took flight

VERSE 3
The man chasing me had increased his stride
But I went into a shopping mall to hide
There were squeals of surprise as I walked through the crowd
I hid in a cubicle in the men’s
As I sat trembling, I looked down to see a hand under the door handing something to me
“Take this brother – may it serve you well. Have this lottery ticket please”

BRIDGE
On Saturday night as I was watching the football
I heard my wife squeal with delight from the kitchen
“You’ve won, darling, you’ve won!”

CHORUS
And that’s how I came to win the lottery
But I still have my shirt with the gravy stain
I won’t lower myself to some snobbery
I’m still prepared to ride that train

VERSE 4
Even though I caught the seven-o-five some more
I never saw the man with the gravy and chips
Maybe he’d been spooked by the trouble he caused
And couldn’t bear to see me on his trips

DEVELOPMENT
When K-Dub Ya and I and our friend Mike met for our usual songwriting jam two months ago, it was my turn to nominate a songwriting challenge. I proposed our next project was we each had to write a song with a story.

I decided to start with lyrics which is abnormal for me – music first in 90% of my songs. Some have also heard me espouse that ‘the lyrics are only a vehicle for the music’ – not something I honestly believe, but it gives me an escape clause if I want to write oblique lyrics.

Rather than trying to make up a story from the start, I decided to commence with the ending. I can’t remember how or where I got the ending ‘That’s how I won the lottery’ (it was probably in the bathroom), but I did, and used that. Then I worked backwards with answers to questions How did I get the ticket?’ and plausible answers became questions themselves: How did I find the ticket?’; ‘Was I given it, and how?’ etc. providing me with backwards branches of potential story lines. And that’s how I ended up with the story of a man travelling on a train who had gravy spilled on him; disembarking in disgust; being followed by a pursuer; escaping a rabid guard dog; walking without trousers through a shopping mall; being given the lottery ticket by the gravy man who wanted to compensate him somehow; to then winning with that lottery ticket. At this stage, my lyrics consisted of a series of unrhyming statements of varying length and metre.

Musically, I just started strumming chords and quickly came up with a ska-like chord progression. I didn’t fuss too much about it – just ran with it. In this same session, I input the verse chords into BIAB and looked for ska styles – there were two: _PICKIT.STY and _BUSTER.STY – the latter having a heavier grunge guitar. Choosing _PICKIT style, I then finished the verse chords and in the process of strumming, came across the chorus progression G – D6 – C6, but it sounded too much like the verse (I normally like to mix it up a bit) but I went with it anyway. It then dawned on me I could change styles from the verse to the chorus, so I used the heavier _BUSTER.STY for the chorus and it sounded good.

I think at this point I had also begun humming a melody and I put what I had into the melody notation window in BIAB. At a later session, I finished my template melody for the verse and chorus.

In another session, I started editing my raw, unrhyming, wordy text into lyrics that I could sing, guided somewhat by the template melody I had. Being a former lisper, I struggle to sing words quickly, so I knew I had to make the ‘singability’ easier for me. As usual, this meant dropping words here and there, and using an online rhyming dictionary to find words that could rhyme or near rhyme, and also looking out for words with the emPHAsis on the wrong sylLAble.

During this process, I decided to make the chorus a lyrical summary of the preceding verse, rather than coming back to a repeating chorus lyric. This made sense because the final chorus could then commence with the song title line. Somewhere along the way, I wanted to introduce a bridge (I always do), and I had an idea about how the subject finds out about winning the lottery, and the idea of him being home with his wife who, is clearly informed about the events leading up to this point, happens to be listening out for the lottery results. Musically, I hadn’t used the D (V) chord much so decided to start the bridge with that and came up with the simple V – IV – V7 bridge with a different strum pattern to break away from the ska strum.

When it came to recording, I used the Drop Station (absolutely LOVE this feature of BIAB 2026) to drag the tracks into Reaper with my template project ready to go. I knew I wanted to replace the PICKIT rhythm guitar with my own because track 3493 (Guitar, Electric, Rhythm SkaFastPop Ev16 180) interspersed held chords in amongst the ska strums whereas I wanted it consistently ska strums. I also decided to replace the punk rhythm guitar RT3494 (Guitar, Electric, Rhythm SkaFastPunk Ev16 180) while I was at it. For verse 3, I wanted variety so I muted the ska guitars and used the 686 (Organ, B3, Background, Pop) which still didn’t seem enough. A day or so later, I thought I’d try a fingerpicking pattern for part of verse 3 which I recorded on my Gretsch G5120 hollow body. When I played it back, I was overjoyed and this section is now my favourite part of the song.

And that’s how I wrote this song!

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Regards,
Andrew D
Adelaide, Sth Aust
Soundcloud: https://on.soundcloud.com/SQE4btVvNVkLq74e9
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@andrewoftheantipodes