Tales from the City: How the Album Was Made 9

This song is one of those that had to go through a roller coaster ride. It's first name was "Upon Summerhill" and it was born in early 2000 in Pierre's basement in Lorraine where we used to jam every day of the week. I had the basic chords on an acoustic guitar and it originally sounded very folksy. Once I played it for the guys it took us only a few minutes to hear how the final version would enfold. Pierre started playing a snare pattern, reminiscent of what you would hear in country music. Dom, on the bass composed an offbeat riff -very simple yet effective. Since I was playing acoustic guitar and also because the song was going in a folk/country direction, Frank had put his guitar on a stand and went to the piano and started playing these beautiful chords. It was magic.

We played "Upon Summerhill" for quite a while. I'd say 5 years. It had a great success in our live shows back when we were called Moonraker. Nonetheless, it didn't pass the test for Tomorrow Starts Today.

---
Listen to a sample of "Upon Summerhill"

---

We stopped playing the song after the release of our first record "Tomorrow Starts Today". Some of my close friends started getting nostalgic about this tune, claiming that it was joyful and pleasant to listen to. I can take a hint, and once in while I would find myself strumming the chords to see if anything good could come out of this. And so it reappeared in our session for "Tales From The City".

As I said in the blog of "No Tomorrow": "You see it's easy to play sad songs. Just play few minor chords and try to sound desperate. The thing is you need more. You need to put colors, emotions, textures and most importantly, passion." The new version I came up with for "Sweet Light" is exactly the same chord progression as for "Upon Summerhill". The difference is the whole environment behind the chords. "Upon Summerhill" was a nice, joyful and relaxing song where, on the other hand, "Sweet Light" is full of melancholic and dark undertones.

Here is how I modified the song:

- I kept the same drum pattern, which I loved. It was a good hook.
- As a guide I recorded the original guitar part from "Upon Summerhill". I wasn't going to use it in the end, but sometimes you have to go out of your way to go further into your creative process.
- The next instrument was the bass. Here to I wanted to explore some other possibilities. The best riff was this line where I was following the snare drum, it sounded very percussive - like a rolling train. From that moment I knew this was going to be the foundation of this song.

Everything was there except the furniture. Seriously, writing a song is very similar to decorating a house. You can put the wrong colors in a beautiful room and there you go, you just killed a great environment. You can add the most beautiful decoration or picture and still, there could be something missing.

- Let's go back, again, to the furniture of "Sweet Light". After tweaking the knobs of my DX-7 keyboard I finally came up with a great sound that you can hear at the beginning. It is very ambient and dreamy.
- Since I wanted the song to have a bit more muscle, compared to "Upon Summerhill", I added two electric guitar parts. Both inspired by one of my top guitar players of all time - David Gilmour. On the first part, I used a classic echo that Gilmour has used many times in his career. It has a lot of groove. It's 1/8 notes delay time written in triplets. (See: "Another Brick In The Wall" or "Run Like Hell") David Gilmour and U2's The Edge are masters of delay as significant and important as the fuzz was to Jimi Hendrix. Talking about fuzz, this was my second part to beef up the song. I actually used a "Fuzz Face", the same pedal that David Gilmour (and Jimi Hendrix) used on their records.

---
Listen to a naked mix of "Sweet Light". You'll hear, what I call, "the furniture" behind a song.

---

After a couple of days of work, the song was done and I was ready to play it to the guys. Everyone was very excited about this track. We were almost done with the album and this new version of "Upon Summerhill" just further amplified everyone's spirits for the new record.

There was only one problem with this new track. Mat had some problems singing what he and Frank had in mind because the song's key was too low. So thankfully, Frank took care of that issue and transposed everything from Am to Cm. I have to say, Frank came with great inspiration for this track. The day he got the demo he went to his place and worked on vocal ideas and some new directions. I think he was listening to a lot of Gavin Friday. Good job Franky!

Finally - A great thing happened during the recording of "Sweet Light". Mat had the idea of having a female vocal singing the choruses with him. We were lucky enough to get Arianne Moffatt, a great French singer from Quebec, to agree to join in. The moment she started singing I felt like an angel was behind the microphone. She has one of the most beautiful voices I've heard in my life! We actually have a full version of "Sweet Light" where she sings all the parts. Its great and we'll put it out one day.

Thanks for reading!
Criq

---
If you are interested to listen to what influenced me for this song, download:

Leonard Cohen: The Partisan from Songs From a Room
New Order: The Him from Movement
Pink Floyd: Run Like Hell from The Wall
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds: The Weeping Song from The Good Son