Lost Lover's Lament

Community Recordings Originals (Not Covers)
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Creativity follows it’s own path. A couple of months ago I shared an original that had taken many many months to produce. And here I am back again.

As my health, specifically my fingers, has continued to recover, I’ve been more inclined to pick up the guitar. One day while strumming around, I stumbled over something that sounded good to my ears. I suspect it may be a fragment from a Foo Fighters Song that somebody played at a Community OM. The Muse whispered and nudged … what might you sing over those few chords.

Long story short, a week or so later I played and sang the song start to finish, which is a first. I suppose some may say, where’s a recording of that first demo, why bother with all this DAW multi-track fuss and bother. The answer is simple, I enjoy composing the parts, arranging, recording and mixing.

So rather than 6-12 months, the gestation period of this baby was more like 6-7 weeks. Along the way made use of Nightcafe to create all the images for the slideshow.

Hope you enjoy the song.

Lyrics

I was lost and alone at sea
Hadn’t a star to show me the way
I just wanna come home
I just wanna come home

I was lost and alone on the road
Hadn’t a map to show me the way
I just wanna come home
I just wanna come home

Hear your voice, hear your song
Hear you calling, calling me home

I was lost and alone in the wild
Hadn’t a guide to show me the way
I just wanna come home
I just wanna come home

Hear your voice, hear your song
Hear you calling, calling me home

Open your eyes, look real hard
You will see the path
Open your ears, listen real hard
You will hear the call

Hear your voice, hear your song
Hear you calling, calling me home

I just wanna come home
I just wanna come home
Wanna come home

PS In my eagerness to post, I omitted to thank my long-term mentor, @LBro. As always I shared progress mixes along the way and he always takes time to listen and give well considered feedback.

For those of you producing multi-track projects, either originals or covers, I can’t overstate how valuable it is to have somebody to offer a fresh pair of ears to listen and give you feedback. Of course, you need to have the right relationship and confidence in their opinions, but when you have that person in your corner it is invaluable.

Having received a request and thinking perhaps others would be interested, here’s the first trial recording. This was made the in the weekend immediately after the evening when I stumbled over the couple of chords and words that seeded the whole song.

Trial play through

24 Likes
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Enjoyed the song, very catchy tune and lyrics. Love the slideshow!
Richard

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That was a fun listen! A nice arrangement as well!

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A really enjoyable listen David! :clap: :clap:

As with all your originals, it is obvious how much thought and care goes into them. Even though this one came to fruition quicker than your others, the attention to detail is still there. Love the lyrics as well. Great job!

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That sounded great sensei, very well mixed and mastered. I enjoyed the imagery, you’ve taken to that like a duck on water. This original likely came to fruition quicker due to experience and progress. A really good arrangement. Lovely lyrics, cracking vocals and instruments. Bravo.

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Loved it all David. The lyrics, the production, the vocals , the video, the lot. Really top notch stuff.

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Wow, David! Another original! Top stuff mate! :clap: :astonished:
The production on this is excellent! You’ve really learnt the trade well! :star_struck:
Your vocals are soaring and the chorus was a real highlight for me!
Huge effort in such a short space of time, well done again mate! :sunglasses: :+1:

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@Richtrfc Thanks Richard. Glad you enjoyed it, always the wish and hope when sharing an original. Extra smiles that you loved the slideshow.

@glpguitar Thanks Luca. Appreciate the comment about arrangement, especially given your own qualities in producing original music

@Jenndye429 Thanks Jenn. Appreciate the comment about the lyrics. It is all challenging but lyrics (and lead) present me with the greatest challenge. I had to overcome some of my inner voice that judged the lyrics as being too simple, repetitive, and sometimes having logical errors that I’d avoid when writing speeches. I reckon your poetry influence is likely to serve you better as a lyricist than my years as a Toastmaster delivering speeches :rofl:

@Socio Thanks James, I can’t easily own ‘sensei’ but appreciate the spirit. And as I’ve said before, if there was one thing that was the essence of this Community it would be the eternal cycle and progression of ‘learning from others and sharing with others’. I do love the van Gogh style oil painting. I tried to achieve that thick textured look when I walked the artists path some years ago for a few years. As I said to Jenn, these lyrics came quickly and I thought were just to insubstantial, but hey it is a pop/rock tune :rofl: As for vocals, Chris Liepe led me up to a better level and I am content.

@Eddie_09 Thanks Eddie, glad to hear you loved it. I love the whole deal and means a lot when others enjoy the final result

@nzmetal Thanks Jeff, glad it all came across so well. I do find myself happily surprised when the backing vocals work out OK (in addition to any comments I get about my pitch and melody). The chorus has a double-tracked high and low harmony part blended in. Don’t ask for technical details, the interval above and below :rofl:, I just wing it.

Thanks again, all, I really appreciate time taken to listen and comment, particularly as I’ve been less active than I used to be.

4 Likes
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Hi David,

I have noticed your absence of late :thinking:.

What a great production mate. Not sure if you have been working on vocals but I feel that those vocals were miles ahead of some previous ones, they sounded really good. I enjoyed the effects and thought the production with the backing vocal and instruments sounded really good. I am hoping to get to that stage one day :ok_hand:

I enjoyed the Van Gogh style slideshow, although personally I like to see the person watch their performance and guitar playing but that’s just a preference, I still enjoyed the presentation.

Well done mate, good to see you posting up songs again. :+1:

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@CD02 Thanks Craig. Probably the last 6 months or so I have wrestled a health challenge that initially ruled out guitar playing. And now that my fingers are almost back in 100% working order, my challenge has been more mental, to rekindle motivation and energy.

When it comes to vocals, I have a BC/AD situation, in my case it is before and after Chris Liepe’s Discover Your Voice course. Now the quality of the vocal is in a ballpark and suspect quality will vary from performance to performance. This one happily turned out well. But I don’t compose the melody, I just put the music on and let it happen. The same goes for the backing vocals.

I am with you on wanting to see the playing rather than a slideshow. Truth be told, my ability to play and sing is such, that often the final part is comp’ed rather than a clean start-to-finish play through. And even if I could then recording video for multiple takes and managing all the files, syncing it up etc is just more work and effort than I want to put into the projects. I did produce one or maybe two posts in AVOYP that were videos of me playing a few parts but much simpler projects. I can share if you’d like the (dubious) pleasure of watching me play such a thing. And I can’t recall if I recorded video when I recorded the demo of this song.

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Hi David,

I hear ya. Early on one of my AVOYPs was where I had played through with the guitar and then sung the vocal on a separate track with the guitar in the headphones. I found it much easier than trying to run the whole show in one go with few mistakes as possible. However, in doing that I didn’t have a video that I show of the whole performance so never did it again and went to sing/guitar in one go.

In general I always think your productions a great and well put together :+1: I’ll have a look back through your posts for those AVOYPs :+1:

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And he’s back in the saddle (music producer’s chair). I’m so thrilled that inspiration and creation took a hold of you again David. Good news to start my day. Bravo on another full-on writing / performing / recording / producing show plus the video. :slight_smile:

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Craig, I think it’s very much horses for courses. In my early days I used to record the guitar and over-dub the vocal (back then just audio, video was not as popular when I started posting in early 2017). Then I was encouraged to try and play and sing. For the performance with a single guitar and voice, I think that makes for the most natural performance and prepares one for OMs.

When it comes to multi-track productions with many parts, then one can consider video for each part performed, but as I say managing all the video sources is going to be a job in itself.

very kind of you to say so. Here’s a link to the video I had in mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAzPyE2AZzk

@Richard_close2u Thanks Richard, glad to contribute to a good start of day :smile: Did you see the production I posted two months back? That’s my original song quota hit for the year :rofl:

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You know, I may have missed it … better check the archives eh!

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Happens so easily. Luckily the tags make it easy to find :laughing:

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David, that was really, really excellent. The production was great. I really liked the video. Great song lyrics and enjoyable vocals too.

Glad to read your fingers are feeling better too. You need those puppies for guitar playing.

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That was great David. Definitely shows you don’t have to sit on a song for months and months to get it ready and share.

You’ve put so much time into learning music production over the years, I wonder - what do you like more, guitar or music production?

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@SgtColon Thanks Stefan, glad you enjoyed it

@jkahn Thanks JK, appreciate it. For me personally, I wouldn’t say I sit on songs, rather that the rate of progress really does vary. Sometimes things flow, other times I get stuck and it takes ages, often writing lyrics or coming up with ideas to solve problems. My record duration was a weekend for my second original but often takes me months and months. That also not helped by only working on the songs over the weekend.

Good question on what I like. The simplest answer is both equally. Maybe I’d be a better player if I had spent more time practicing and playing, not spending so much time in producing originals (or on the Community for that matter). I think musicians come in shapes and sizes with different aspirations. For me the original song-writing is a pinacle of sorts. And being able to produce music with all the different instruments is as rewarding as playing an OM.

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Lots to like, Loverboy (see what I did there? :wink:)
I’m with you 100% about the satisfaction of writing, recording and producing our own songs, even if I know others won’t like them. Lots of good stuff going on here, most of which has been mentioned, so I won’t repeat. Just say Bravo! :clap:
Kudos to the Brother for the loan of the lugs. He’s a generous dude :sunglasses:
Regarding @jkahn, I think we’re on a similar wavelength here. If the muse/opportunity presents, write a song; Come across a cool tune- cover it; Share simple or complex recordings; play live; whatever takes your fancy.
(I suppose practice should fit in there somewhere :rofl:)
On the positive criticism front- I wonder why the beginning of all the verses are in the past tense and the rest of the song in the present :thinking: It might sound more immediate/connected if it was all in the present.
Well done!

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@brianlarsen Thanks Brian, appreciate all the bravos.

As I tried to get across in my reply to @jkahn I am in agreement. I’d like to think I’ve not ‘sat’ on a song, pursuing some measure of betterness (in my case never going to say ‘perfection’), but for me it takes as long as it takes.

Interesting point on the conflicting verb tenses. You could well be right. I am delighted to say I never gave the verb tenses any thought at all. This is good as I struggle a bit to lose the speech-writing Toastmaster and become a more comfortable with writing songs where one can take more liberties (I think). So the words flowed as I strummed and so became the lyrics.

2 Likes