On Songwriting - "In Paris"
There are some songs you want to write, and some songs that you need to write. And many ways to write a song. Some are fuelled by melodies that pull you into a steam of inspiration that you willingly swim along in. Others are driven by intense emotions that spill so quickly you can’t capture them fast enough when they’re like trains speeding by on the rails.
I have always kept trip journals, loving the moments of quiet reflection, immersed in the experience, and painting the landscape through words. Words to look back on and savour long after the trip has come, and gone.
After one such trip to Paris with my daughter Taylor - a weekend spent with just the two of us shopping for her wedding gown, leisurely strolling the streets of Paris, sharing a, first for us, bottle of wine, - I knew this trip was the end of one chapter and the beginning of another. And of course, I had written down a few lines about this.
Of note was the line “nothing could prepare us, when I left you there in Paris” - a line that perfectly summed up the weight of change I was feeling. That line, like many lines I write, sat for the longest time - a first page in one of my writing journals - until one day at the cottage, with a plan to write some new songs - I turned to the first page of that writing journal… and there it was.
This initial idea also spoke to my giving my daughter a kiss every night before bed when she lived at home. And so, I had also written down that before my leaving her in Paris that I would be giving her a kiss for every night and titled it “365 Kisses”.
I started playing a simple guitar line and fell into a space - enveloped in the same wave of emotion that had inspired me to write down those lines in the first place. My daughter was growing up, and there was a sense of uncertainty and loss in that.
I’m extremely visual when I write. I joke that the movie unravels in front of me as I follow my lyric into what I see and that the melody sets the soundtrack for what I feel. So there I was, transported back into a Parisienne cab with my daughter, window open on a warm evening, as we climbed the cobblestone hill to Montmartre.
I never made it past that first page as I was completely lost in the moment of writing and wrote most of “In Paris” that day. I laughed that at this rate there had to be a thousand songs waiting to be written in this journal. And then, as I do, I spent a fair amount of time revisiting the lyric, the voicing of the chords, the flow, the structure, the story, stepping away to revisit until I arrived at the “I’m good with this” finish.
There are some songs you want to write, and some songs that you need to write. And many ways to write a song. Some are fuelled by melodies that pull you into a steam of inspiration that you willingly swim along in. Others are driven by intense emotions that spill so quickly you can’t capture them fast enough when they’re like trains speeding by on the rails.
Some songs have you labouring over what the hell it is you’re trying to get off your chest as you struggle with each line trying to break through what it is you want to say. Other songs fall out line by line and can take years to write. And some songs you write, but never really understand until sometime in the future when you have an ‘aha’ moment of realization and the song makes complete and perfect sense.
Songwriting is cathartic. It is fulfilling, insightful, joyful, mysterious, elusive, revealing, rewarding and … sometimes frustrating. A song is indisputably part of you. I believe you should take the time needed to look for and find them. And when you do find them, to take the time to refine them … because they’re forever yours.
As for the production approach on “In Paris”. It was consciously pared back. True to me and to the roots of painting a story, the song is unencumbered by much instrumentation. I’m appreciative that my producer (Will Schollar) was sensitive to what “I” and “In Paris” needed and called for. The simplicity of capturing the guitar lines of where the song began and the addition of a few ambient production details, created the perfect vibe for listeners to fall into a moment, my moment of “In Paris”.
❤️ R.