King of the Never Wills
With THREE demos outlining the journey of this song
This one is fun. I think I’ve said it before, but when lyrics are coming out, I don’t care what the music sounds like. At least not initially. I just need a simple progression to help me get the cadence and the structure of the lyrics down. Then I can go back later and rework the music into something that feels appropriate or just something that I like a little more. I don’t write with just a paper and a pen like some artists are known to do. I need an instrument to help me figure out the inflection of some kind of melody which I can later bend and shape to the new music’s needs. If that all sounds confusing, I promise today’s recordings will eventually clear it up.
Round 1
When I first started this song I had a title and a first line and then, out of nowhere, one day in a hotel room on tour, it all started flowing. I don’t remember how or why, but I knew I had to catch it then. So I sat on my bed with my unplugged telecaster (in case you’re wondering why the guitar in the first recording sounds so flimsy and small) and I had at it. In order to get out of the way of the words, I quickly settled on a Kristofferson-esque 6/8 feel with very simple country changes with a very predictable melody. I love it when I hear Kris or Waylon or Willie use melodies or chord progressions like this, but for whatever reasons, some I could probably pinpoint and some I probably couldn’t, I don’t feel like a straight(er) country approach has really worked for a Dawes song. All that to say - I knew the music wasn’t gonna survive this hotel room writing session. But I was happy with the words and I was able to land 3 whole verses and choruses. At that point I knew I wasn’t done with the song but I knew I had enough to carry me over the finish line eventually. Here’s the wildest part - according to the dates on my voice memos, this happened in July of ‘21…a year before the release of Misadventures of Doomscroller. And there it stayed untouched, but not completely forgotten, until January of ‘23.
Round 2
I was living in NYC at this point. My wife had a job out there so I was mostly hanging out with the kids. And then one day during an oh-so-brief nap time, I revisited this lyric. Misadventures had been for a minute so I was started to feel the pull towards getting the next batch of songs together. Of all things, I had been listening a lot to Being Funny In A Foreign Language by the 1975. That record hit me very hard for 2 to 3 weeks and then seemed to disappear from my rotation as aggressively as it arrived. But it was in that time when I gave a second attempt at cracking this song open. I don’t know if the influence of the 1975 record is audible, but it definitely what was getting my juices flowing at that time so I feel like it’s worth a mention. This second demo is a very different emotional space from where it started and from where it ended up, but it was still an essential stop on the journey because you’ll hear in there the beginnings of the actual chorus shape. It veers off in the second half of the chorus, but that first half is pretty close to the final version. It’s all too low for my voice because I forgot to bring a capo with my to New York. Sorry about that. I ended up deciding that I missed the 6/8 quality of the original and that this fast tempo was going to rush the listener through the words in a way I didn’t like. So it was clear there was still a little more work to do…
Round 3
This time it was only a month later that I decided to finish this beast once and for all. I took everything I learned from my first two attempts, kept what I liked and tossed what I didn’t and wrote whatever else was “needed” (a subjective term in this instance, but it’s what the creative process feels like to me, and I’m sure most other creatives). I’ve talked about sometimes enjoying seeing “how much a song can handle.” How many more sections, how many more verses. Of course I don’t apply this thinking to songs that feel like they should be a little lighter/more economical like All Your Favorite Bands or Still Strangers Sometimes. But when writing songs like Didn’t Fix Me (with its 5 verses) or Someone Else’s Cafe (clocking in at 10 minutes with all sorts of disparate instrumental moments), it’s fun to keep asking “does more make it better?” until the answer is obviously “no.” That was the case with this song. I knew it wouldn’t be a contender for a single, so I thought - “If I keep songs like House Parties and Still Strangers Sometimes nice and tight, then I can indulge with this song without it bogging the record down at all.” A one-for-them-one-for-me principle (not that I have any idea who “them” is in this case, since we don’t really have radio/commercial hits in any sense…but I digress).
So I wrote the last two verses and choruses and carved out a definitive melody that felt true to the emotional tenor of the lyrics and finally felt like I had completed the song. Of course there were minor tweaks between this demo and when we finally recorded it at the Oh Brother sessions, but it more or less stuck to this shape. This post has helped me realize - I guess I could technically say this one took me a year and a half to write.
Below, paid subscribers will find all three of these iterations. I’m curious to know your thoughts! Talk soon!