Saturday, June 21, 2008

night shifts at the airport

Over the last month or two I've only picked up my guitar a few times, having been pretty tied up with my ukulele, which I'm slowly getting the hang of and enjoying using enormously. And as well as playing that a lot I've been scribbling lots of lyrics - mostly half thought-through - into my notepad for later use. One of those was a quick lyric for a song called 'Night Shifts At The Airport', which transcribed various memories and observations of mine, mostly dating back a few years, and jumbled them up with other hypothetical events I've never experienced, creating a weird half-poem which feels both made-up and oddly personal. Having written them down, I toyed with a few melodies and then gave up on the song.

Then a week or two ago I sat down by my computer and idly picked up my acoustic guitar, which feels all big and foreign after so much time with the uke. And I started playing a long, repetitive and very simple sequence of three chords - E, A and Am. And all of a sudden a song was in my head and I recorded the guitar, sang the completed lyric from my notepad and fed it quickly into Garageband, where the song sat for a few days feeling rather bare and lonely. Since then I've added a bass line, a bit of piano and some more guitars, but I think it still sounds simple and quick - or it's supposed to, at least.

Here it is:

Assistant - Night Shifts At The Airport (demo) [2.35 mins, 3.6mb]

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Is it just me or is this one a bit of a departure? Definitely different vocally?