Irish Goodbye (draft)

by @joetime · @gutberlet · @jmcquay2

Liner Notes

#one_take #harmonies - recording is a one-take on my phone, best we could do a darn-near midnight!

First collab of the year! Jess, Ken and I have been around the same music scene for a long time, and we've shared many shows - but this was the first attempt to write a song together. Jess brought the idea, 3-feel, and the lyrics for the chorus, then we worked out a chord progression to match the vibe. Things got interesting when we SWITCHED the chords for the verse and chorus (making the chorus minor and the verse major), and Jess played out the melody she was hearing on a glockenspiel (sp?). The harmonies we came up with for the chorus confirmed we were on the right track.

We had a lot of fun with the 'form' of the song, looking to place both a guitar hook AND a drum fill hook throughout (we all play in bars, we know what it takes to get people's attention!) Dropping bars and cutting the lyrics here and there to let the other parts shine through. We turned part of the verse into a guitar riff to leave some room in the verses.

We brainstormed some lyrics together and got some basic ideas down - we focused on some lines that would work well in that last line in the verse as (what we called) "drop-lines" (or maybe that was just me :) We were pretty spent by that time so we chose to leave the clean-up and tweaking to another session - and we're also looking forward to getting Jess on a kit, where we can really let the drum parts bring the song to life in a new way.

Lots of fun hanging and working with these two, looking forward to some more!

Lyrics

The night's candle flickers, wicks burning down
I still haven't found my piece of ground
Don't pay me no mind, I'm just killing time

Whiskey and cigarettes, wonder and wine
Zig zag through faces, out of my mind
There'll come a day when there's no time to waste

This is the time for my Irish Goodbye...

The words that you said you can see on my face
My glass is empty so why would I stay
If you languish too long tomorrow'll be gone
Maybe today I'll be on my way

This is the time for my Irish Goodbye...

If you languish too long tomorrow'll be gone
Maybe today I'll be on my way

Comments

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Wow, what a great way to start to March Album Listening Month - I'm so happy to discover all three of you. The thumping on a table percussion captures that feeling of singing in a pub, This feels like a companion song to Guy Clark's Dublin Blues. The singing and playing and lyrics are all great.
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really strong verses- they genuinely sound like an old folk ditty written years ago. melody works great over the progression and recording fits the vibe.
Love to hear the title line/chorus with a stronger melody- felt bit out of place to me compared to verses.
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@audrey
Oh, I really enjoyed this! What a lovely melody and the guitar and drum are so sweet. Toe-tapping good stuff. What a wonderful collaboration.
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The live phone recording gives it a raw vibe that I like. The timing changes keep it interesting as well. Good work all!
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This is great. Love the overall feel and the arrangement with nice structure around verses. The shortened repeat verse at the end works really well to bring it home.
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Cool, there is a nice lilt to the music.
Yes, vocals could be a bit louder but not bad for a phone recording.
This has a nice vibe to it.
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@gordon
This is really rather lovely. The Vox could be a bit higher in the mix for me, but the track has good coherence and jaunts along very nicely. Good collaboration
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You're welcome to use my house to record kit ...
[FAWM]