Jachin's Songwriting and Performance Journal

Bill Withers. “Ain’t No Sunshine”. Just As I Am. Sussex Records, 1971.

Billy Joel. “Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song)”. The Stranger. Columbia Records, 1977.

Bob Dylan. “Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat”. Blonde On Blonde. Columbia Records, 1966.

Bob Dylan. “Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again”. Blonde On Blonde. Columbia Records, 1966.

Brian Boyd. “Just the 2 of U”. The Irish Times. 27 February 2009.

Dua Lipa. “Good In Bed”. Future Nostalgia. Warner Records, 2020.

Frank Ocean. “Seigfried”. Blonde. Boys Don’t Cry, 2016.

Hiatus Kaiyote. “The Lung”. Choose Your Weapon. Flying Buddha, 2015.

Passengers. “Miss Sarajevo”. Original Soundtracks 1. Island Records, 1995.

The 88. “At Least It Was Here (Community Main Title)”. Community (Music From The Original Television Series). Madison Gate Records, 2010.

The Strokes. “The Adults Are Talking”. The New Abnormal. RCA Records, 2020.

Weyes Blood. “Everyday”. Titanic Rising. Sub Pop, 2019.

Not much to say as we were only able to rehearse very late in the semester, so there’s only two rehearsals to speak of:

Rehearsal 1 – Myself, Lily, Sam, Serena and Declan met and we started learning Sam and Lily’s songs first, coming to grips with the rather unusual song form of Sam’s “Don’t Jump The Gun”, and the half-folk half-R&B saunter of Lily’s “Go”.

Rehearsal 2 – The five of us were all present again, and we learnt Serena’s soulful “Bittersweet”, as well as re-practiced Lily’s song – in which we dropped the folky aspects and leant fully on the R&B influence, a decision which gives the song’s rhythm more punch and overall increases the impact on the listener.

Overall, I feel that despite the unusual circumstances I was able to better my songwriting lyrically, rhythmically, harmonically and melodically. Song Of The Week has really helped track my listening in a concrete and fun way – if you hadn’t noticed, all my journal entries are titled after other songs by the artist that performed that week’s song of the week. This week is titled after Frank Ocean’s “Self Control” as I need to keep this week’s entry short to avoid going over word count, haha. Thanks for reading my semester of musical exploration and self-improvement 🙂

Song Of The Week is “Seigfried” by Frank Ocean. My favourite moment in this is one of my favourite moments in all of the last decade’s music – the bass guitar at 1:40 just before the lyric, “I’m living over cities“¹² perfectly surfaces into the dream-like atmosphere the song creates.

¹²Frank Ocean. “Seigfried”. Blonde. Boys Don’t Cry, 2016.

This week I ended up doing a big dive into Bob Dylan’s seminal album Blonde On Blonde, and attempted to mine as much lyrical wisdom as I could from one of the great modern poets. It’s almost silly to say this given it’s been said a billion times, but I love his use of imagery – these biting lines from “Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat” for example:

“Yes it balances on your head like a mattress balances on a bottle of wine
Your brand new leopard-skin pill-box hat“¹⁰

This conjures the instability of the hat – disparaging the ‘balance’ of the subjects head, implying an instability of judgement. Furthermore, the chosen imagery has sexual overtones given its mention of a mattress and wine – which together creates the full picture of the subject making poor sexual choices, which ties in to a broader theme of the song – Dylan is frustrated that an old flame is seeing other men.

Now I can’t claim to achieve Dylan level lyricism, but I attempted to use cohesive imagery in a song I wrote this week. Here’s the first verse for example:

Raindrops on roses she keeps in a vase
Lipstick collages that strangle my gaze
Watching her sway as she paints the town red
These are the things that are stuck in my head

In this affectionate description, I used roses and lipstick as imagery because they are often red, so that the next line’s mention of the colour red ties into the broader picture painted by the verse to achieve greater lyrical cohesion.

Song Of The Week is “Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again” by Bob Dylan. My favourite bit is Dylan’s vocal delivery on the line: “She says, “Your debutante just knows what you need – but I know what you want,”¹¹ which is at 5:39 here:

¹⁰Bob Dylan. “Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat”. Blonde On Blonde. Columbia Records, 1966.
¹¹Bob Dylan. “Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again”. Blonde On Blonde. Columbia Records, 1966.

In 2018 I was at a party at a house that had an upright piano. I was encouraged to play a few tunes, and I happily obliged, cracking through “Easy” by the Commodores and “Africa” by Toto at the request of others in the room. Then someone piped up:

“Do you know Piano Man?”
“Yup.”
“Oh, play it then! ‘Sing us a song, you’re the piano man!’ Haha.“
“No.”

Now I’ll fully admit that was a mean approach to the situation, but if there’s a song that I’ve experienced one too many times, it’s Piano Man, not least because there’s always some wise guy that points out that I am, in fact, a piano man.

However, in what was to be my second dose of humble pie this semester, I discovered Billy Joel had released music that I really quite enjoyed – his 1977 album The Stranger.

I especially enjoyed two tracks – the bouncing “Get It Right The First Time”, its driving drum beat forming an irresistibly fun foundation underneath Joel’s earnest vocals, something I kept in mind to apply to my own songwriting. Most of the songs I’d been writing in isolation were slow brooders to emphasise serious lyrics, but this song reminded me that a strong message can be sent overtop more energetic rhythms too. The second was this week’s Song Of The Week: “Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song)”. My favourite part is how initially jarring but ingeniously catchy the moment at the end of the line “Working too hard can give you a heart attack”⁹ is at 0:28:

⁹Billy Joel. “Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song)”. The Stranger. Columbia Records, 1977.

The Strokes released their new album this week, 19 years after their debut Is This It was hailed as a bona-fide instant classic by the indie rock community. As I was listening to their 2020 record, I considered the effect New York cultural products have had on me – many films I like are set there, and many bands I love (such as The Strokes) hail from NYC – and yet I’ve never been, and especially amidst the pandemic would not be setting foot there any time soon. This inspired me to write a song using New York City as a lyrical jumping off point.

New York taunts me with the tip of her tongue
New York haunts me with the breath of her lung
All her promises I’ve hung
(I employ the technique of personification to demonstrate New York’s allure.)

New York shimmers on the edge of my view
All I want is one sunny afternoon
Have what she’s having too
(This references a famous quote from When Harry Met Sally, a film set in NYC.)

‘cause i’ve seen movies
and i’ve read books
and they all told me
get a closer look
(I use the movie reference to connect with the rest of the thoughts of the prechorus, which outlines an expectation…)

but
New York isn’t real
New York isn’t real
New York isn’t real to me
New York isn’t real to me
(…but the chorus displays the reality of how I feel.)

Goes to show that sometimes inspiration doesn’t necessarily come from the music I’m hearing, but indirectly by just letting my mind wander while listening.

Song Of The Week is “The Adults Are Talking” by The Strokes. My favourite part is the gentle melody for the chorus on the line “Don’t go there ’cause you’ll never return”8 at 2:43:

⁸The Strokes. “The Adults Are Talking”. The New Abnormal. RCA Records, 2020.

Every day definitely was starting to blur a bit, and I can’t say I was doing much of note except rewatch Community, a sitcom I first watched in 2014. However, I seem to be incapable of ever fully removing my music analysis cap, and found myself learning the chords to the show’s opening theme song. Funnily enough, it also prominently employs the bVII chord throughout the song, which served as encouragement for me to continue with the song I was writing last week. The prechorus and chorus chords were as follows:

D – Dmaj7 – A – Amaj7 – D – F#m – F#m9 – Amaj7
E
F#m – G#m – B – Amaj7

With this prechorus, the song’s initial key of E is thrown into doubt given that it seems to have transitioned to A major – but then the chorus lands on a strong E, and remains firmly in E for the remainder of the chorus, resolving the key uncertainty to reinforce the uptempo energy.

I also love the juxtaposition between the upbeat nature of the song and its rather downtrodden lyrics – finishing a verse with the line “we could be roped up, tied up, dead in a year,”⁷ without losing any pep is pretty impressive.

Song Of The Week is “At Least It Was Here” by The 88. My favourite part is the chord change for the bridge entry at 0:59:

⁷The 88. “At Least It Was Here (Community Main Title)”. Community (Music From The Original Television Series). Madison Gate Records, 2010.

This week was marked with the unfortunate passing of iconic singer-songwriter Bill Withers, who was in inspiration to musicians around the world, including myself. Even from a young age – my mum tells me that “Ain’t No Sunshine” was one of my favourite songs to sing at 6 years old. On hearing of his passing, I revisited his discography and found there was a wealth of songwriting knowledge to be gleaned.

For example, “Lovely Day” has a brilliant chord progression – what I love about it is how it plays around with the ambiguity of the key – the song begins with an E major, followed by a C#m, and then an A major 7, which can be heard as a I-vi-IV in E or a V-iii-I in A (and then follows that with a non-diatonic Cmaj7 chord in passing to add to the mishmash). It is only the following Bm7 that confirms the song to be in A major, but with a strong emphasis on that E chord that starts the phrase. I tried to play around with a similar effect for a song I started writing this week. The verse chords are
F#m – E (x4)
F#m – C#m (x2)
F#m – E (x2)
At this point it sounds like it’s probably E major – but the pre-chorus lands on a D chord, giving the appearance of a switch to A major, or maybe just the rogue bVII chord. It’s up to the ear’s interpretation!

Song Of The Week is Ain’t No Sunshine by Bill Withers. My favourite part is the “I know, I know”⁶ section, which to date is one of the most audacious verses I’ve ever heard, and it just works so well.

⁶Bill Withers. “Ain’t No Sunshine”. Just As I Am. Sussex Records, 1971.

The lockdown atmosphere really set in this week, and I found myself having to adapt to a new routine. However, I still managed to find time for the important things: like songwriting, of course. Inspired by the interpersonal distance that I was experiencing, I wrote a song for love in the time of coronavirus called Isolation Girl, and uploaded it to SoundCloud. It’s a moody morsel of lo-fi bedroom pop production wise, but I wrote the chords with an old-school Bacharach kind of intent, to juxtapose the modern feeling with a timeless sentiment.

https://soundcloud.com/jachin-mee/isolation-girl

My primary intake of music this week though came from the new album of English singer Dua Lipa Future Nostalgia. Lipa infuses her brand of radio-ready pop with refreshingly vibrant musical ideas, such as the dancehall inspired percussion on 2017 hit “New Rules”. My main takeaway from her newest record is how clever her melodies are rhythmically – such as how the rapid-fire verse cascade of “Levitating” cleverly builds momentum, or the sparse phrases of the chorus of “Don’t Start Now” allow the underpinning funk bass to shine. Hopefully, I can use this shrewd melodic approach in my own pop songwriting.

Song Of The Week is “Good In Bed” by Dua Lipa. My favourite bit is the little laugh that she does at 2:48 after bluntly singing, “We don’t know how to talk, but damn we know how to fuck.”⁵ Cheeky, but also sets up the entry of the last chorus nicely.

⁵Dua Lipa. “Good In Bed”. Future Nostalgia. Warner Records, 2020.

As soon as I grew out of my childish affection for their song “Vertigo”, I have always disliked the band U2. Maybe that’s unfair as I haven’t listened to the one album people tend to say is ‘actually good’ (Joshua Tree), but everything I have heard is trite. ‘Beautiful Day’ especially. Eurgh.

On another note, I have always revered the work of Brian Eno, especially his production on one of my favourite albums of all time, Remain In Light by Talking Heads. Many of his other works too, from his aptly titled ambient work Ambient 1/Music For Airports, to his collaborations with David Bowie in the 70s, are excellent.

So when my dad showed me this beautifully solemn song called “Miss Sarajevo” and then said, “This is U2 and Brian Eno,” I was certifiably bemused.

It certainly served as a lesson for not writing off artists entirely. I never thought Bono would inspire me lyrically, but his tender couplets here paint an vivid portrait of teenage years fading all too quickly against the backdrop of war.

“Is there a time for first communion?
A time for East-17?”³

It’s easily the best thing U2 have ever creatively generated, and you might think that’s my bias speaking, but Bono is quoted saying this is his favourite U2 song⁴, so there.

As for Eno, this is right up there with some of his best work. The orchestral implementation is brilliant, and so is the addition of guest vocalist Luciano Pavarotti – yep, Pavarotti. Crazy, isn’t it? I would say ‘Lets get more opera in pop songs!’, but I have a feeling nothing would top the way the two genres intertwine here.

Song Of The Week is, of course, “Miss Sarajevo” by U2 and Brian Eno under the moniker Passengers. My favourite part is when Pavarotti makes his grand entrance as the strings swell at 3 minutes and 23 seconds, but his whole performance is so, so good.

³Passengers. “Miss Sarajevo”. Original Soundtracks 1. Island Records, 1995.
⁴Brian Boyd. “Just the 2 of U”. The Irish Times. 27 February 2009.