The demo is always better than the album version. There is no detour around this irony. It is a lesson that is learned and relearned with every song I record for this album.
There was that moment when the lyrics and a homeless melody met, lightning in a bottle or maybe something less dramatic - fireflies in the backyard that found their way to an empty mason jar. You stare that them, turning the glass in your hands marvelling at what you caught. This is the magic trick and it never gets old.
Yes, you make a clumsy recording on your phone all jangling strings and your voice cracks just right. This is just for you, or maybe you will share it with your loved ones. It is a private performance, a diary entry, a home movie. Then you go about the hard work, fixing the lyrics, maybe throwing out that second verse and writing a better one. You think about what instruments will serve this beast - and you try them all.
The day comes, and you have rehearsed just enough. There is the waiting for house to grow silent. The nervous glass of water. The shuffling around and staring out of windows. The repositioning of the fancy microphone, the nudging of the chair. Then the recording begins and it comes out all wrong. Too fast. The guitar keeps slipping out of key. You start to forget the words that you know by heart. Your left hand becomes a brick, a phantom tree limb with its own life. You strum wildly, imagining this splashing around will come across as a depth of emotion but it is really just banging on trash cans in the worst way. There is a right way to make glorious noise, and this is not it.
You surrender, to try another day.
The next time it comes out differently, but you are still haunted by the grace and candor of that demo. The demo that sounds like another man playing another guitar, unhurried - with nothing to prove.
The toothpaste will not go back into the tube. The battle has been lost, and you were never in a position to win. The plan is stillborn, lifeless. So, you regroup. You need to find the guts of the song again, maybe shift the melody a little. Change the phrasing a little. Find a place to get quieter. Find a place to slow down. Try one more guitar, not the one you want to play but the one you need to play.
If all else fails, there is always the piano.
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