Hey guys.
I know the vast majority of my followers are here for my non-fiction essays, but I started this Substack with the express aim of distributing my original music and building a musical career. So, intermittently there will be occasional posts (like this one) where I catalogue a part of my musical journey.
I understand that they are not to everyone’s interest (the meagre numbers that these kinds of posts get makes that abundantly clear) but I will continue to release them as a part of a holistic record of my journey into the creative industries. My music is the reason I am here on Substack after all but fear not, my hair-brained, ‘dime store philosopher’ essays will resume presently. Until then, you can read on as I waffle away about my approach to the songwriting craft and listen to my wailing voice and amateurish (yet steadily improving) home musical production, if you wish.
It’s a long story as to why I chose Substack as a platform to release my music (which you can read in full here) but I will try to summarise the key points below:
1. I essentially wanted to have dictatorial control over my musical output, with zero interference from other actors or parties, so it would remain 100% authentically ME and could thus succeed or fail entirely on its own merits.
2. I object to the modern ‘streaming service’ business model of platforms like Spotify (which in my view is tantamount to theft) but I needed somewhere to potentially monetise my work as an independent.
3. The music industry (like any creative industry) is almost entirely fake. The ‘fake it ‘til you make it’ maxim has made inauthenticity somewhat of a virtue in these fields and I find it abhorrent and loathsome. (The dawning of Artificial Intelligence being utilised in music has only exacerbated this issue). ‘Live Not By Lies’ is the mantra that I live my life by as being inauthentic causes me to detest myself without fail.
4. Woke! The music industry is full of it, infected from head to toe with the mind virus to end all mind viruses. With it comes groupthink, purity policing, de facto heresy law, cancel culture, etc. This is an affront to free speech and free expression which are not only of paramount importance and value to me personally, but also a necessity for artistic expression in any form. As I have a taste for essay writing too, the heterodox leaning Substack seemed like a perfect fit as they claimed to be a ‘cancel culture’ free zone.
With all that rigamarole out of the way, allow me to now address the song I am releasing in this post. The original title was ‘Back To You’ as it is the lyric featured prominently in the hook of the song. I then changed it to ‘Coming Home’ and then later ‘Homecoming’ because I wanted to be less ‘cliche’ for reasons I will touch on presently. Then, after a while I just went back to the simple and cliche original title because it ultimately felt more (here’s that word again) authentic.
I wrote this song for a songwriting module in my second year of university studying music. My lecturer had been setting me tasks that were designed to get me out of my comfort zone, be more innovative and creative, and avoid songwriting cliches.
Although a man I admire and respect greatly, my professor and I had substantive disagreements about music. He was of that ilk that I have so maligned in many of my recent posts: an academic music elitist who (in my opinion) looks down on the catchy, four chord songs of the ‘great unwashed’ masses as being ‘lesser’, common (and dare I say) scummy. The kind that turn their noses up the ‘populist’ artists who have the audacity to entertain large audiences of their (what they deem to be under-educated) fellow man with the low hanging fruits that are the tried, tested and long surviving heuristics of songwriting. Catchiness, singable melodies, relatability, avoiding unnecessary complexity, etc.
Thus, he was seemingly allergic to cliche in any and all its forms and wanted to indoctrinate pass that aversion on to his students.
Upon noticing that I tended to use the ‘4 chord’ a lot in one song I wrote, he barred me from using it (and the 5 chord for good measure) for a songwriting exercise. He used to regularly assign us students with exercises that included limitations and set parameters that cut off our natural songwriting tendencies and habits so as to force us to think, create and problem solve in directions that we were unfamiliar with. Strengthening us in our weaker areas, so to speak. I enjoyed these exercises a lot and learned a lot from them. They were fruitful, fulfilling and I fully support their practice.
So I wrote 3 songs in which I didn’t use these ‘cliche’ chord changes to varying degrees of success. One is still a song that I revisit often and debate recording a version of, but the subject material is SO DARK and grim that I remain apprehensive about it. It does have some of the cleverest ideas I’ve ever put in a song and I am very tempted to produce it, if only as an academic exercise. But I doubt I’ll ever release it, it’s just too upsetting and perverse. I digress.
The next songwriting exercise my professor tasked me with was to use non-typical or irregular chord voicings, chord extensions and to change into an entirely different key centre for a segment of the song. This song is an adaptation of one of the songs I wrote in response to that brief. (Warning: I’m about to get very nerdy!)
I have significantly simplified the chords since that demo as the chords I used required needlessly complex fingering that made them mostly unplayable. I wrote it in B Major but have raised it by a semitone to fit my natural singing voice which more comfortably rests around C Major. I noticed that then but couldn’t submit a song in C Major because of the aforementioned biases against cliche that my professor had. For clarity, I’ll address both versions as being in C Major.
The verse section is built around a C Major 7 chord that then changes to the fourth chord F, also played as a Major 7. This was an intentional ‘fuck you’ to my professor as he had previously criticised my over-reliance on using the subdominant 4 chord (plagal or ‘Amen’ cadence, etc) so I made a point of doing it anyway whilst still adhering to his ‘add chord extensions’ constraint.
I then figured I would just change up a whole tone for the chorus to tick the ‘change key for a segment’ requirement of the list. I thought about just abruptly changing to the key of D Major, a ‘Truck Driver Key Change’, as it is sometimes referred to in the songwriting trade. This sounds about as corny and as ‘hacky’ as songwriting can possibly get, like a Celine Dion or West-life song, and is typically seen as such. I knew that it would be seen as far too cliche for my old professor’s tastes.
So I decided to steal from the best and borrowed a chord sequence from a Brian Wilson song where he disguised a full tone key change in the subtlest and most seamless way I have ever heard. The song in question is one of my all time favourites, Don’t Worry Baby [below] by Wilson’s band The Beach Boys. (Warning: I’m about to get EVEN MORE nerdy!)
In it, Wilson changes from the verse key E Major to the chorus key of F# Major by playing a 2 - 5 chord sequence in the verse key (F#m - B) to then playing 2 - 5 chord sequence in the new chorus key (G#m - C#) and then comfortably resolving to the new tonic (F# Major) and establishing a new key centre a tone higher than the one that preceded it. I did the same thing in my song (transposed down two full tones) from the key of C Major to get to D Major (Dm - G - Em - A - D Major 7).
I then reversed this process at the end of the chorus and introduced a borrowed chord (Bb) which I play as a Major then a Minor before resolving back to the original key to end the sequence in yet another atypical way (by my pre-existing standards).
My professor was enthralled and enamoured by this sequence, describing it as a ‘really gorgeous shift’ on my official grade feedback documentation. I was surprised how little familiarity he had with such a sequence, given his love of classic songwriters like Brian Wilson.
But for me this song was always tainted by all of the above. It wasn’t me being 100% authentic to who I am as an artist, which is someone who values entertainment as an important factor in artistic expression. Instead, I was pandering to the mind of someone who in my view was a musical ‘elitist’; someone who feels their extensive knowledge of music and its theoretical practice elevates them and their opinions above that of the common man: making them superior or even exalted. A form of ‘credentialism’, if you will. I have found that this cohort of musician can become dismissive and even resentful of any musician who uses a simple chord sequence that they have heard (admittedly millions of times) before because it resonates with the non-musician masses.
I’ve waxed lyrical about this in previous articles (here, here and here) but I believe part of the job of an artist is to distill their ideas in a way that it can be accessible to those outside of the orbit of music theory and study. Blend their academic and artistic creativity with the entertainment factor to capture the imaginations of wider audiences so that it can communicate their ideas broadly and resonate with all manner of their fellowmen. The working man, the layman, the man on the street, as it were.
I essentially view ‘songs’ in connection with the songwriting craft as analogous to ‘jokes’ in the comedian’s craft. The necessary function of a joke (and therefore the gauge for its success or failure) is to elicit a laugh from the audience who it is directed at. The laugh has to be authentic, instinctual and for all intents and purposes involuntary for the joke to succeed at its essential goal. If a joke doesn’t make people laugh, and instead has to be explained as to why it is clever, insightful and funny after the fact, it failed as a joke. If you have to explain why a joke was funny,… then it wasn’t funny.
I see songs in the same way: the audience has to enjoy or appreciate a song innately, ‘in the moment’ and ‘in and of themselves’ without an explainer after it's finished to describe ‘why’ the song was good. If you need to read an essay about a song to appreciate why it is good, it failed as a work of art ‘in and of itself’. Sure, that stuff can help add more context for nerds like me who crave that kind of thing (that’s exactly what I am doing here). And it can aid those listeners who are more naturally interested in having a deeper understanding of a work of art to gain a deeper appreciation of it. But that stuff should not be a necessary requirement, rather an optional added level of depth available to nerds like me. The song should be able to stand on its own as a work of art in isolation without it for those who just want to enjoy it at shallower depths.
Non-musicians typically don’t consciously (if at all) notice that the chords they are hearing have been used in thousands of songs prior, because they don’t have the knowledge that the trained and educated musicians have that inform them of this and have inculcated in them a contempt of it through overfamiliarity. They just enjoy or dislike music innately, in and of itself, without intellectualising it in any way. For lack of a better word, they judge music purely by feel.
This essay serves the function of explaining my motivations behind writing this song, why I made certain decisions and their meaning, etc: but I would never EXPECT people to read it and they are perfectly within their rights to not do so. Therefore, I must judge the success or failure of this song on people’s innate reactions to just listening to it. The song has to elicit a positive reaction during the act of listening alone to be considered a ‘success’, just as a joke has to make them laugh instinctually.
It is of course fine if a musician just wants to make esoteric, avant garde music that is totally inaccessible to the general public if they so wish. They just shouldn’t expect to make any real money or gain any significant notoriety off the back of it, is all. Sadly, in my experience, so many of these types begrudge and resent the ‘great unwashed’ for listening to Ed Sheeran or Oasis instead of their 4 hour rhapsody of microtonal insect chirp samples mapped onto and triggered by a steam powered 1880’s typewriter keyboard that retells the Myth of Prometheus from a non-binary perspective. Had any of them actually bothered to read the philosophical literature they so readily cite as their inspiration, they’d soon realise that resentment is corrosive. Alas, they rarely have and often become bitter as a consequence at their lack of wide acclaim.
My professor disagreed with me vehemently on this issue, such is his right, and we had many good natured dialogues about it. Regardless, whenever he was marking me I knew I had to channel my inner ‘pretentious artist’ and really ham that stuff up. However, to imprint a little of my own ‘keep it simple, stupid’ philosophical outlook into this song, I added a looped four chord section in the natural minor mode at the end, complete with simple, repeating ‘singalong catchy’ lyrics. This was yet another good natured ‘fuck you’ to my professor which I justified as ‘modal interchange’ or something in the write up. He didn’t mention it in the marking at all, for good or ill.
I also tried to still make the vocals catchy throughout as that is an important part of songwriting to me and ties into the ‘in and of itself’ rule I keep. I want people to walk away from listening to my music whistling it, humming it or hearing it playing in their heads (because apparently that’s a thing people can do). So I spent a long time streamlining and rewriting the lyrics to that effect whilst still trying to be creative and inventive with them for the benefit of my professor. I listened to a lot of popular songwriters who use chord extensions to great effect (like John Mayer) but still manage to keep their choruses catchy to see how they did it.
The narrative of the song is self explanatory. Man is far from home and pledges to get back to his beloved as fast as possible and by any means necessary, even if that means walking a great distance. There was another verse in it before but I cut it for time and because it was mostly superfluous.
The ‘treelines that I recognise’ line is a reference to my local geography as the main freeway that enters my home county of Cornwall, England features a sight colloquially known to the locals as the ‘Nearly Home Trees’. A cluster of beech trees stand together on a hill right on the border as one crosses it. Anyone local who has been travelling away recognises these ancient natural structures as a signal that their long travels are nearly over and they will soon be welcomed back into the loving embrace of their home county.
I practiced the song loads and eventually performed it to camera so I could submit it for grading (remote learning - COVID-19) and then forgot about it entirely for a few years. But recently, I have found myself playing it when I picked up the guitar and thought it would be a useful song to use as production practice, which I need. It’s slightly jazzy feel would give me an excuse to blend piano and electric guitar together, the two musical disciplines I have been focussing on a lot of late.
So I started to produce it a few weeks ago with no intention of finishing it. It still isn’t, but I feel it is a good early stepping stone in my independent musician journey that I can publish as another work in progress. I have also found that the song has grown on me a lot in that time, probably down to how much fun I had playing all the different parts.
I have tried to do something slightly different and unique with each instrument, instead of just layering what are essentially identical parts played in different timbres, which is something I normally do and have received criticism for. Ultimately, in my zeal I fear I might have overdone it. The disparate parts all playing in unison sometimes sound cacophonous, messy and ‘too busy’ to my ear. As I say, it's a work in progress. I’m sure I’ll revisit it over the years as my skill, knowledge and experience levels increase and create a tighter and more cohesive version.
That’s the long, meandering story behind ‘Back To You’ and my motivation for writing it. I felt I had to lay all my cards on the table to fully explain it and give it it’s full context. I hope you like it. Until next time… Thanks for listening.
Pete Brennan - Singer-Songwriter
Back To You [lyrics]
Heathrow Airport, 5:15
Sick to death of reading notice boards and magazines
Scared my flight will never leave
And bring back to you
Oh bring me back to you
Check departures on my phone
Read the names of all these places I will never go
Count my losses, hit the road
And drive the whole night if I have to
I won't stop until I'm with you baby
As long as I get back to you, (oh oh)
As long as I get back to you, (oh oh)
I'll keep driving through whole night
If my car breaks down I'll hitchhike
(If) no one picks me up I'm walking home to you...oh
Sights familiar to my eyes
The sun is rising over treelines that I recognise
Counts the minutes out in miles
I’ll walk the whole way if I have to
I won’t stop until I’m with you baby…
I’m Coming Home (Anywhere you are) (x8)
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