Episode #209:  A Certain Kind Of  (Song starts at 4:41 )
This song, #213, is in a different style to the piano vocal ones that have made up the bulk of the songs featured on this podcast. It was written in 1992 by myself and with Paul Dredge on guitar. So it’s a guitar + voices song.
Writing with Paul, when we are in the same room, is great fun. Having had a brief chat about the lyrics, what sort of mood style might suit, Paul will start playing a riff or some chords on his acoustic guitar. I have the prewritten lyrics draft in hand.
It’s completely liberating for me to wing a melody over the top of what Paul is playing. I have no idea what chords he’s playing (I don’t play guitar). His fingers moving easily on the fretboard, his eyes are shut for the most part. Me, I’m alternatively looking into space, or projecting some sort of energy back to Paul as we write together. He’ll look up now and then and we just click together.
There’s been a fair few songs written like this by us now. We are about to release our 6th folk rock album. Our last one was called The Untrodden Track (It’s streaming on all the usual platforms).
Being able to write songs so easily and quickly together is something we certainly don’t take for granted. It’s a joy.
The words include Tip toeing on broken glass. It was an emotional time for me when I write the lyrics (a love interest, things not running all that smoothly).
t’s a good idea as a song writer to keep an eye on yourself in terms of maybe keeping a diary. You can then. glean some truths, what’s true to you. When you do this sort of work on the self, I think you’re more likely to write songs that ring true. Because they come from a place of some clarity. That’s the idea, anyway.
You may choose to tuck of that truth into some arty sort of lyric writing, obtuse, if you will.. there’s some interesting lines in this song that’s for sure: communicating in a chamber
One of the great things about emotional upheavals is they can be great experiences to draw on to put into art. Affairs of the heart.
When Paul and I write, we are completely on the same page. We communicate without talking as we improvise our parts. You have to listen very closely to what the other person is doing, when you’re in the moment, composing together.
A Certain Kind Of was one of 17 songs we recorded and mixed in 3 days (!), our first time in a real studio. With Earl Pollard on drums and Michelle Pickett on vocal harmonies, it all came together really well. Everything was one take - including the vocals. All sung live together, with some tight harmonies.
Performing music like this in the studio is a blast. I was as high as kite at the time of - and for days after - the recording sessions. It was like we managed to produce the paintings which I always imagined we could, after having working drawings and sketches for so long.
Composing and recording is still where it’s at for me after all these years. I’m putting the finishing touches to 5 albums at the moment, in different genres  - and I intend to release them all this year.
This podcast is such good fun, creatively, it’s a great release for me to me to be doing what amounts to a songwriter speaks sort of online gig each week. It’s nice to be sharing the music, the stories, some songs writing ideas.
By the way, you certainly don’t need any musical theory up your sleeve to enjoy this podcast. It’s inclusive, each week, while I’m inviting you into my songs (which at times are very personal), once they are complete , recorded even a demo, means they are outside of me, so I’m comfortable sharing.
Each listener is going to hear the song differently. Some will hear the beat, others the melody, others the mood, others the lyrics.
Arranging a song is great fun as well. So it’s a multifaceted thing, this song writing..there’s the lyrics, the music to compose,