A Visit From A Muse

From a spark in my brain to finished song: 13 hours. My new song, “Someday I’ll Stop Dreaming Of You.”

Long version: I had some dreams last night. I woke up at one point this morning and the idea and chorus for this song were in my head. I was still tired and wanted to go back to sleep, but I couldn’t. And this song kept nagging at me to give it life. So I got up and fired up my studio. I knew this was going to be different from anything else I’d ever done. I knew it was going to be all synthesizers when I’m mostly an organic guitar-driven guy. I knew the exact vibe and atmosphere I wanted. I also knew I was going to write it in a way that I’d never written before: as I went along. Just tinkering with sounds and parts.

So, where to start when you have many different synths, each with hundreds if not thousands of sounds? I did a search for every sound that had “Dream” in the title. Then I started going through them all and finding ones that I thought might work for what I was going for. I ended up with about 20+ tracks of synths ready to be used. I started piecing it all together part by part. After about 10 or 11 hours, the music was done and I had a verse and a chorus of lyrics. I took a walk at around midnight and finished another two verses. I got back home and finished the last of the lyrics, thinking I would record vocals tomorrow.

Then I realized that I was going for a very soft vocal style on this song, so despite sleeping roommate’s and roommate’s child, I decided it couldn’t wait. I recorded all the vocals, did a few overdubs and edits, and here we are. Approximately 13 hours from when the muse kissed me, her gift is done. A song completely unlike anything I’ve ever written or recorded before. Everything but the vocals was done with Reason 11 in Reaper.

Some of the identifiable (to me) influential ingredients in this musical casserole:

• Billie Eilish
• David Bowie
• St. Vincent
• Pink Floyd
• Jellyfish
• Cars
• Annie Lennox
• Adele
• Muse

A list of (most of) the synth sounds used (all the “dream”-based sounds):

• Analog Dreams
• Dream Sands
• Ethereal Dreams
• Galadriel’s Dream
• Alan Turing’s Dream
• Dreampark
• Wavetable Dreams
• Porpoise Dreams
• Spock’s Dream
• Start Your Dream
• Acoustic Dream
• Toy Dream
• Dream Central
• Soft And Dreamy
• Dreamsong