Blog: FAWMing It Up Big Style

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Last time I did February Album Writing Month I started off, as far as i remember, at HIGH SPEED and was WELL ahead of schedule right from the start. THIS time, however, I've had quite a bit on so have been a bit worried about slipping behind. I'm on TOUR next week and had rather hoped to be able to get quite far into the fourteen songs before that all started, and so the fact that I'd only got TWO songs done was giving me the FEAR a little.

HENCE yesterday I decided to take ACTION, and ended up writing TWO (2) songs! HOORAH! I've just written the NOTES for them, so rather than repeat myself (any more than I usually do), here is the FACT about the first one, A Difficult Age:

Yesterday morning (7th February 2011) i sat down at my desk at home, just before going to work, and thought "I'll have a go at something with C#m in it for February Album Writing Month", as I'd recently spoken of it an an EVENT as my favourite chord. The progression rolled out very easily, and it struck me as i did so that it sounded rather SMITHS-Y - had i at last discovered the secret of Sounding A Bit Like Johnny Marr?

ALAS it turns out the secret of Sounding A Bit Like Johnny Marr is to be REALLY GOOD AT PLAYING GUITAR, but it did make me think maybe I could have a go at some Morrissey-esque lyrics, and also slightly Moz-ish structure, not worrying too much about lots of different bits and singing it slightly differently in different places. I'm not sure I managed the second half, but i AM quite happy with the way it does a sort of ME-ified version OF Morrissey, being a bit WRY like him and DOMESTIC, but the domesticity of Peterborough in the early 1980s rather than Manchester in the 1950s.

It's all true about the cheese and salad cream sandwiches, by the way - i LOVE cheese and salad cream sandwiches, leave me alone in a building for five minutes and i will MAKE them!

That IS true - i LOVE them! Anyway, once I'd got the GERM of the song in my head I set off for work and then the SECOND song, Touch Wood emerged, as follows:

I was on my way to work when I saw a penny on the ground. I kept walking, but then thought "See a penny, pick it up, all day long you'll have good luck" and DID so.

Later, at work, I thought "I don't appear to be having especially good luck today" but then fell to considering that i MIGHT be, but didn't realise because it was busy fighting off BAD luck - like when you take a ZINC tablet and don't feel particularly ZINGY, but also don't actually catch a cold.

This very easily led to the first verse and also the second, then I got a bit STUCK trying to think of a THIRD proverb. i GOOGLED proverbs, rhymes, sayings and so forth, with AND without the first two included, until eventually I saw the FINAL verse and realised that it fit perfectly.

And that was pretty much it - I worked out a FAIRLY complicated (for me) but also FAMILIAR chord pattern, and we're done!

Well, we're DONE as far as writing it's concerned - i still need to finish RECORDING them both, but that's a job for another day. TOMORROW, to be precise, when I hope to ALSO do some work on the song I'm working on with Vom Vorton for Geek Pop and maybe write ANOTHER song.

February Album Writing Month - it's a lot of ACTION, but it's a LOT of FUN too!

posted 8/2/2011 by MJ Hibbett

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