So here it is. The last demo from Stories Don’t End. You might wonder why some songs haven’t gotten their moment in the sun. Well, Hey Lover is a Blake Mills cover so there’s no previous Dawes recording of that, the reprise of Just Beneath the Surface never got a demo and Most People and Just Beneath the Surface are bonus tracks on the deluxe vinyl and soon to be on the digital deluxe release as well. Add those to the 7 already released and that makes this the only SDE song unaccounted for.
It also happens to be the last song I wrote for the record. Last songs written for Dawes albums always have often been quite the game changers.
Here is a list of the last songs I wrote for each album
1 - When My Time Comes
2 - A Little Bit of Everything
3 - Bear Witness (as we’ve discussed)
4 - All Your Favorite Bands
5 - Roll With The Punches
6 - Living In The Future
7 - Free As We Wanna Be
8 - Someone Else’s Cafe
As you can see, the last song written for our records have often changed the identity of the record and in some cases the entire course of the band. I don’t think if that’s exactly true for this album, but I’m definitely deeply grateful for the arrival of this song at the 11th hour.
Before writing it, I felt good about the collection coming together, but I felt like it was a lot of the first person perspective. There was also a lot of that kind of (dare I say) lyrical writing that tries to help elucidate a complicated emotion at the expense of some linear clarity. This made me want to write a solid narrative song. Something clear, that wasn’t at all about me, but still representative of how I might feel about a thing or two. I also wanted it to stay locked into one story. After writing A Little Bit of Everything and So Well, I felt I had worn out my welcome with the triptych and wanted to prove to myself that I could explore a theme by using one story and not just starting a new one at the beginning of each verse.
Another consideration of mine before writing this one was the idea of the wordless chorus. Or at least a wordless portion. When I wrote When My Time Comes I insisted that it wasn’t finished because I hadn’t figured out what words to put into the ‘Whoa-oh’s.’ I eventually just gave up, and thank goodness for that. Eventually, having seen what that song did for us, I wondered if there was a way to do it again without it feeling like a re-tread. Basically, I just wanted to write another big ass chorus that everyone could sing along with.
So with these two concepts in mind, I wrote Bear Witness. I feel like it checked all the boxes I was hoping it would and the band seemed to like it. But once we recorded it, it seemed to tell us how it needed to be recorded. It didn’t feel right to hit the ceiling with this one like it did with When My Time Comes. My hopes that it might be “The One” off of this album dissipated but in a way that made me like it more. When the essence of a song, or any piece of art, subverts expectations set by its creator(s) it truly feels greater than the sum of its parts. It felt like this song wanted to have its own life and not any that I had prescribed for it. I liked that. So I didn’t buck.
Once we started playing it live though, the arrangement that felt right in the studio didn’t feel right on the stage so we came up with a more aggressive way of playing it that (hopefully) still felt true to the lyric. I used to think we should record a studio version of the newer live version. Maybe release it as a single or something. But now I like that it’s only for the show. That there is no definitive version of this iteration. I also feel like it’s high time to come up with a new arrangement anyway.
Before I attach the demo, I just wanted to share this last tidbit with you…
When I first wrote it I was calling it ‘Bear Witness To,’ just like how the line ends in the song. It took me a minute to see that just ‘Bear Witness’ was slightly more elegant and title worthy. But until I changed it, Wylie really had a field day with it. He kept sending pictures of a teddy bear in a suit to the band’s group chat. He even developed a whole plot line. “Teddy Bear Witness Two.”
Thank you all for indulging me and letting me unearth all these old thoughts and feelings about a record we released 10 years ago. I’ve had a blast and hope you’ve enjoyed it too. I am always up to answer any further questions about the album if you might have any. Maybe we’ll get some more posts out of it. And to anyone concerned - this won’t be slowing down my Substack output in the slightest! I promise! Onward!
For paid subscribers - here is the 2012 demo below!