Whats better than a living room jam session with a new friend? A living room jam session with a new friend where ya’ll end up co-writing a song! Never Again is the first single I’ve worked on where I’ve featured another artist, the incomparable Geshie, and it has been a fantastic process. We started off at Geshie’s place, jamming with my guitar and a melody in mind. The groove hit us hard, and armed with some should and the Voice Memos app on my iPhone, we went to work. It’s a beautiful thing, creating something unexpected, but that ends up having so much personal meaning, and thats what we did. We just let this simple melody fill us both with a song, and to you we deliver, “Never Again”.
Never Again is the answer to “what comes after happily ever after?” What happens after the end scene where the credits roll? Well, reality is what happens. In our lyrics we aimed to craft a story about “after”, and how if we are being realistic, happy endings seldom remain happy. “I wanna feel the rain”, and not just because we are currently under quarantine and I haven’t left the house in 3 days, but also because I’m sure we have all just wanted the storms in life to come and pass. You just want to get the hard part over with. To drown in our sadness, sorrow and pain, knowing that there is sun after the rain. This song explores the storm, and wanting to be enveloped in all of the real feelings to work through that pain, telling ourselves, never again will I hurt again. I will avoid the mistakes that set up a false happy ending that actually ends up being the pre-cursor to a reality check. “Seasons change, and things won’t stay too warm” (unless you live on the West Coast or somewhere with a really temperate/sunny climate-lucky duck). Relationships change, and we have to weather the storms within them. And sometimes we have to end them in order to find our sun again. “A sunset can’t be bought”, we don’t always get the happy ending. But we can move forward because truly, “wishing on everlasting” of one thing or another got no one anywhere. Change is inevitable.
Now, to depart from all that delicious weather/seasons metaphor, we bridge into the production process. I will be putting a video up in the next couple of days with regards to my formal tech set-up, but I want to take a moment to get into the production itself. This is a certified Kristen Merritt in-house recording, with all recording of voice and instruments done by me (with the help of some midi tracks grâce à la Logic Pro-X). This was my first time working across so many tracks to bring a song together, and it’s been a lesson in getting a really good take, and fine tuning with embellishments. A lesson in mixing too (which I’m still getting the hang of, but hey I think it ~blends~ well in this song). Production is a beast, but I love learning how to tame it. Call me the mother of dragons, except the dragon is a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation), and while there is fire being brought (eyyy), its not the roast a person alive type (but hey you might vibe with it to that degree so who aim I to dim your flame).
Thank you all for listening and reading. Check out Never Again across streaming platforms on April 17th. What is something you learned in a past relationship that you will “Never Again” do, not wanting to bring bad habits into the next? In the meantime, check out some of my other music to get yourself ready for Never Again! My recommendation is Weird Weather to get started as it also uses weather metaphors (and actual storm sounds taken from my previous life living in VA). Stay healthy, and stay listening to good tunes.