“The Books” is the first and title track of my debut supersingle. I’ll be going track by track and writing an article about each of the three songs on the release to document my journey and process. The following is the first of these, describing the story behind the song and its creation.
The Books Release Page
(More info and streaming/download links)
The Riffs of The Books
The process of writing The Books started several years back. It began with the formation of all three guitar riffs featured in the song before any other music save the main lyric “Do what you wanna’ do”.
The first of these riffs I wrote was the chord-riff you hear after the chorus in the song. I was motivated to write a riff one night after watching the BBC documentary “The Joy of the Guitar Riff” early in my guitar-playing journey.
When I put my fingers on the top three strings of the guitar I found myself playing the riff that would eventually become the part in this song. I think it was a bit different in its original form. It worked well as a riff but never had a song to go with it.
The other two riffs were connected to each other from the beginning. One is the shorter, more repetitive riff heard in the intro and the verse. It emphasizes the tritone interval giving it a darker, tense sound but resolving quite quickly. These notes reminded me of some film score or another I had vague memory of from my childhood.
The short riff was built, however, as a variation on the initial parts of the riff heard in the chorus. This chorus riff (heard also in the second part of the intro before the first chorus) is a more theoretically technical riff that tells a longer story. It showcases a mid-riff key change, dancing around one set of notes without landing on them until the time is right. I formed it to act as counterpoint for the first lyric I wrote for the song.
“Do What you Wanna’ Do”
That initial lyric “Do what you wanna’ do – I don’t care about you” and the melody (or some similar melody) that went with it came in fairly early. It was the day the game Lords of the Fallen came out and I was trying to launch it on Steam. Steam needed an update out of the blue at just that time and the thought that came to mind was “Do what you wanna’ do – I don’t care about you”. It sounded like a hook to me so I held onto it and started working on a riff to go with it.
Let’s Dance
The inspiration for the structure and mid-riff key change came from Let’s Dance by David Bowie – the bassline in particular. It was a song I became rather obsessed with. Actually, although I’d heard Let’s Dance before, I took notice of it and the bass part after first becoming obsessed with a different song: Vacance (Or Vacances or Vacation or 바캉스) by f(x). It which uses the aforementioned bassline as a guitar riff in its chorus. When I found out about the origin of this riff from a Youtube comment I took an interest in Let’s Dance. I became more interested in the work of David Bowie’s and Let’s Dance producer Nile Rodgers who would become an influence to me as a guitarist. Who says Youtube comments can’t be helpful?
The original chord-based riff may have been altered to follow a similar key change structure. This introduces some different notes in the third quarter of the sequence. I don’t remember what it was like originally but I probably changed it to fit that structure at the time I matched it up with the other riffs to all be part of one song.
Stagnant Period
This initial work (with only a single lyric) was done years ago and I didn’t make any more progress on the song for a long time. It was probably 2015 at the latest the last I had last written anything. I was sitting on the material for a very long time. This was a period in which I didn’t know what I was doing as a lyricist. Not that I know now, but I didn’t write many lyrics at all except for a time of around six months in 2019. This was very stressful for me so I gave it up again, and I didn’t make any progress on the yet unnamed track that would become The Books.
2021 – Writing The Books
It was late 2021 when I when I tried writing lyrics again, this time jumping straight into this song. I had been working on instrumental music throughout the year. I wrote a lot of guitar music and started playing with a pick in 2021 after using almost exclusively fingers previously. But in the end of the year I felt ready to turn my attention to something I always wanted to do – writing vocal songs.
I was sick with a cold or flu at the time. I don’t think it was covid. My voice was very low and I wanted to try recording vocals in that state. I think I had already tracked guitars at that point, although I would redo them later. I didn’t have lyrics ready but I thought if I took even another day my voice might go back to normal. This motivated me to write and record all the vocals for the song in one afternoon. It is for this reason that the song only has one verse. I’m a slow lyricist and that’s all I came up with that day.
2022 – Final production
Guitar parts were redone and the strings and other sounds were added quickly in a final week of production in February, alongside the production of Beneath a Burgundy Moon. I think the solo and higher vocals in the chorus were added at this time as well. It came together a bit rough, with perhaps not enough production time, particularly around the vocals. Vocals will continue to be my weak point – my experience is as a guitarist and producer of instrumental music after all – but I’d like to document my journey in this area through my release catalog and these writeups.
“The Books” Track by Track #2 – Beneath a Burgundy Moon
“The Books” Lyrics
Do what you wanna do
I don’t care about you
I don’t care if you’re mine
Throw me a line anytime
When will I care about you?
When will I care?
Do what you wanna do
This should be a rebel song
But I don’t really care
Don’t care for your rebellion
Don’t care about my share
Don’t care about your sympathies
Don’t care for second looks
Don’t care to cook a second meal
Don’t care to cook the books
Do what you wanna do
I don’t care about you
I don’t care if you’re mine
Throw me a line anytime
When will I care about you?
When will I care?
Do what you wanna do
Do what you wanna do
I don’t care about you
I don’t care if you’re mine
Throw me a line anytime
When will I care about you?
When will I care?
Do what you wanna do
