Soundcloud: Omaha A song NOT about Omaha. The phrase ‘I’ve never been to Omaha’ and melody for this phrase just came to me as I started my morning walk, so I quickly mumbled it into my phone. What on earth I was doing singing about Omaha?! In fact, I didn’t quite know where it was – mid-west US? It gradually became a song about Adelaide. See my songwriting notes below for the journey.
Style is _ROUSE.STY (Rousing Folk Americana)
RealTracks in style: 1580:Bass, Electric, Folkie16ths Sw16 085
RealTracks in style: 3152:Fiddle, 5-string, Background AmericanaFolkCoolAndy Sw16 075RealTracks in style: 3140:Mandola, Rhythm AmericanaFolkCoolAndy sw16 075
RealTracks in style: 1581:Guitar, Acoustic, Rhythm Folkie16ths Sw16 085
RealDrums in style:FolkModernSw16^01-a:Snare, Hihat , b:Snare, Ride
RealTracks in song: 2692:Organ, Rhythm ModernPopSlowMike Ev 075
RealTracks in song: 4267:Sitar, Rhythm Slow16thsDronesAnwar Ev16 065
RealTracks used for Intro chord:
RealTracks in song: ~2475:Bass, Acoustic, HeldSimple Ev 085
RealTracks in song: ~702:Guitar, Acoustic, Strumming Spirited Ev 065
RealTracks in song: ~1118:Guitar, 12-String Acoustic, Strumming Ev 085
Mixed in Reaper.
LYRICS(See chord sheet attached)
Many years ago I moved far from my place of birth
To a land of hope and promise - I had no choice
My Mum and Dad had lots to lose but they put us children first
I’m glad they heard the call above the noise
They could’ve gone anywhere
The climate hot and dry but the beaches were to die for
We lived close by, they reminded us of our former home by the sea
Those days were hard and the price was paid but we built ourselves a life
Our southern home on the thirty-fifth degree
We could’ve gone anywhere
I’ve never been to Omaha, I’m not compelled to see
I’ve never dreamed to go that far, I’m happy just to be here
I bet you’ve never been to Adelaide, they say it’s a place to live
At least that’s what Ben Folds was thinking until he had to leave
He wrote about it in a song, it wasn’t long and then he moved away
But I’ve decided that it’s here I’m gonna stay
We became true Aussies, spent our summers in the sun
My bro and I roamed streets ‘til the lights came on
We marked our territory like explorers paid per acre
We had good friends ‘til our innocence was gone
We could’ve gone anywhere
I’ve been to Brisbane once, I’ve been to Melbourne twice
I’ve been to Sydney three times, and always paid the price
Darwin once, Perth once more, and Canberra’s pretty nice
Whoops! I left Tasmania off again!
I’ve never been to Omaha, I’m not compelled to see
I’ve never dreamed to go that far, I’m happy just to be here
I bet you’ve never been to Adelaide, they say it’s a place to live
At least that’s what Ben Folds was thinking until he had to leave
He wrote about it in a song, it wasn’t long and then he moved away
But I’ve decided that it’s here I’m gonna stay
I’m glad that it’s here I am today
But I’ve decided that it’s here I’m gonna stay
This sandpit is the one I’m gonna play in for all my days
TL;DR
SONG DEVELOPMENT(Dates are DD/MM/YYYY format)
14/04/2026 The phrase ‘I’ve never been to Omaha’ and melody for this phrase just came to me as I started my morning walk, so I quickly mumbled it into my phone. Later than day, I worked out what the melody and possible chords were by putting them into BIAB. I remember a recent thread I started about the definition of swing feel, and answers to that post by DC Ron and Noel96 – the latter revealing that Sw16 could fit a song like ‘Heart of gold’. So, I auditioned a few Sw16 feel styles at 75 bpm (the approximate tempo my voice memo had) and chose _ROUSE.STY. Between BIAB and my guitar, I had worked out three quarters of a chord progression, then backtracked to write the rest of the melody over these chords, knowing the key signature was probably going to be too low, but humming away with a melody that each chord inspired – ‘trial and error/see where it leads me’ method. The remaining chords and melody came until I had finished that section. At that stage, I still only had the opening lyric and wondered what on earth I was doing singing about Omaha! In fact, I didn’t quite know where it was – mid-west? So I kept seeing where the lyrics would lead me, and a telling point was when I came up with the line ‘I bet you’ve never been to Adelaide’ and then the link to Ben Folds emerged as I remembered he had lived in Adelaide for a number of years having married a local girl, and also having written a song about
Adelaide, so I thought he would be a connection to Adelaide. In the 10th bar of this section, I had introduced a rising melody over F#m – F#m/F – Bm – E, and that progression inspired the lyric ‘then he moved away’, hanging on the Bm – E. By this stage I was feeling that I was working on the chorus – it just had that feel about it, probably because the love of my home city was shaping up as the theme of my song. However, the closing chords of this chorus ended on a Bm7b5 (in the key of A!), but not being one daunted by dissonance, I thought it would be a good way to tension-release into a verse, so I left it in.
16/04/2026 I came back to work on a verse, picked a starting note in my range and kept mumbling out melodies until I had something cohesive, inputting each melody phrase into BIAB melody track as I went. But still no verse lyrics.
26/04/2026 A week later, I listened to the verse melody and started the lyric with ‘Many years ago I moved far from my place of birth’. I was born in the UK and we migrated to Australia in the mid-60s under Government-assisted passage, or what was known locally as ’
ten pound poms ’. So, once I had that idea, I kept adding to it and shaping the text and rhymes to suit my guide melody or vice versa. At this point, I decided that the verse and chorus where too close to each other musically, so I decided to have each in a different key, and I experimented with transposing one or both but also within my vocal range. In this same session, I had an initial idea for a bridge consisting of listing all the Australian state capitals and how many times I had been to each. I slipped in a running joke by us Aussies about Tasmania often being left off maps (it’s the only non-mainland state). Being a fan of good Aussie band ‘The Whitlams’ and their song ‘
Melbourne ’, I thought I would give a nod to them in the bridge. This bridge idea remained just that until the next session.
12/05/2026 I came back to work out some chords for my bridge section inspired by the Whitlams ‘Melbourne’ by mimicking a portion of melody from that song (‘She paints pictures on the wall’), although the final result is very obscured. I finished off the verse lyrics and also updated the melody track notation in BIAB to match what I was now singing. I usually import this melody track into Reaper along with all other tracks and this becomes my guide for when I start recording vocals – although often I will vary the melody while I am recording my vocal. I imported the BIAB tracks into a new Reaper project, using a template project with all my favourite effects, tracks, region markers etc. I did some simplistic mixing to get ready for vocal recording. I hadn’t yet thought about an intro – if it needed one at all.
23/05/2026 I recorded my main vocal and second vocal track, with the aim of one doubling the other but at -18db and slightly to one side. The second track also serves as a backup in case there is ‘dodgy’ singing on the first vocal that I want to replace. There was in this case – two words that I missed in the recording that I subsequently swapped between these two tracks. As usual, I looked for phrases that were too far apart and punched in anything that was required, while all my mic levels and placement were still the same. Later that day, I used Reaper ‘Stretch markers’ to align the odd word or two between both tracks. I uploaded to Soundcloud in private mode.
24/05/2026 I had an idea about using a BIAB sitar loop for a different feel for the bridge, so I generated that track and imported into Reaper. It didn’t quite sit with me, so I also generated a BIAB B3 organ track and imported it.
01/06/2026 I wanted to record a harmony vocal to give the chorus and bridge a lift. I used the soloist track in BIAB by copying the Melodist track to it, then worked out the harmony by editing these notes - usually higher.
02/06/2026 I imported the Soloist track into my Reaper project to act as a guide during recording the harmony vocal which was mostly achieved by successive ‘punch-ins’ of between two and four bars each. I used manual pitch correction using the ReaTune effect to a few syllables where I didn’t quite hit the mark despite several attempts. I uploaded to Soundcloud again, for review.
06/06/2026 I had still been thinking on-and-off about an intro and had had an idea about using the ‘secret chord’ from ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ (Fadd9 + G7sus + D bass note) appropriately transposed but reversed. I created a four-bar BIAB SGU with two bars for each chord and using RealTracks for 12-string electric, 6 string acoustic and acoustic bass and imported these into Reaper as individual stems, where I cut them up and placed each chord on top of the other, then reversed each stem so they built up over two bars immediately before verse 1.
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