I thought today we could look at the evolution of a song… specifically one that I helped write with my songwriting team BHP. The song is called Last Flight.
The song started coming about one night when me, James Blair, and Casey Payne (the three of us make up BHP) were sitting around and playing with ideas. Jim was running his guitar through a Black Box, which has an automatic arpeggiator on it. He played some simple chords through the arpeggiator and let the effect take care of the rest. This is what he came up with.
From there, I took the song and started to build some instrumentation around Jim’s original guitar riff. When I had an arrangement down, I showed the guys, we tweaked it a bit, and they each added a few layers of instrumentation as well.
Here’s what it sounded like at that point:
Next up, Casey took the song and began to write vocals on it. I asked him to comment on that process. Here’s what he had to say:
Being that I’m a big fan of sci-fi and fantasy, it was bound to start showing through in my lyrics. And the lyrics were pretty much my only input in this particular tune. I was literally sitting at my computer one day while I had the television on (though muted) and music coming from my mp3 player on the pc.
And what was on television that day? The movie Serenity of course. Because I had already seen it multiple times and loved it that was the channel I left it on while working at my desk. As a hardcore sci-fi geek, Serenity is easily in my top ten favorite movies of all time, maybe even my top five. If you’ve seen it or the Firefly season that got cancelled (on which the movie was based) then you understand how good of a cast those programs had and how good the writing was. If you haven’t then consider this your invitation to rent these and find a couple of gems. Commercial over.
While I was watching a particular scene in Serenity, it all came together for me. During the time where the Serenity (the ship itself) had made its way through the blockade of Reavers and was falling on a virtual crash course through the nearby planet’s atmosphere, the music coming from my pc was an as-yet-untitled song which Jim and Jason wrote. I was watching that scene thinking has it all come to this? This cast has gone through a hellish adventure only to go out like a meteor? It was a tense scene. As though I were aboard myself, my life with the crew began to flash before my eyes. As I relived my memories of the program, the way the crew of the Serenity had bonded in very odd but deeply intimate ways, I came to the conclusion that they were on a good path together. Of course, the writers of the series and the movie had designed the show like that. It was a good drama as well as a comedy and a great sci-fi flick.
So there it was. Serendipity. No, not Serenity. I wrote serendipity. Because it doesn’t usually happen like this. It all came together. The music that Jim and Jason wrote, the drama of the movie and a flash of creativity. It all sparked. The lyrics and the melody came to me faster than I could record them. As you have heard the song already or have the chance to, here are the lyrics for your perusal:
Last Flight
you and I on this flight together
we have flown through fire, through blood and secrets
here it comes-the courage to be standing
standing like so many times before
burning through the atmosphere
falling to what might be our destiny
hold on to me and I’ll hold on to you
last flight in glory
I lost my hope before-what good is it now?
There is no one left and where can I go?
in your eyes I find the courage to stand here
in your faith I finally find my reasons
burning through the atmosphere
falling to what might be our destiny
hold on to me and I’ll hold on to you
last flight in glory
Ó Blair Hannah Payne
Here’s the song with the vocal parts added on.
At this point, Jim decided that he could take the song one step further by adding some clips from Serenity. He filled it out with some sounds from the movie to give it a final touch.
Here’s what the final product sounds like.
And that’s that!
Hopefully a brief look at how a song came about for us might give you some ideas or inspiration on ways that songs can come about for you, too.
