*squeels*
Hey guys,
As you might remember a good few posts ago now, I vowed that I was going to get back into playing and partially re-learning guitar, after not properly practising since I started uni. I set this promise in stone by buying a new guitar and amp to keep in my London flat and, though I have not reached anywhere close to where I want to be skill-wise, and won’t realistically be able to do that till I have escaped the perils of third year, I am starting to get better and my passion is certainly back.
With this passion there has come an overwhelming feeling of wanting to write my own material, something I’ve never previously had any urge to do. Spoiler alert: it’s very difficult. My notes app on my phone is full of random ideas, whether that be chords, lyrics, even just a single phrase, and most do not amount to anything because I get frustrated if there isn’t immediately an obvious way it can be created (something I should probably work on if I want to get any better at this).
The inspiration for ‘The Colour Red’ came about in a weird way. I was walking home from uni and listening to my music on shuffle. The song ‘Formidable Cool’ by Wolf Alice, which I had not really listened to much, always being a far bigger fan of their first album, came on. I let the song play however, and when the chorus hit, which goes ‘believe in the chorus’ / ‘I believe what he taught us’ and other variants throughout the song, I clearly wasn’t listening properly and thought singer Ellie was saying ‘believe in the colour red’ - and I thought that was a cool concept. The colour red is associated with so many different feelings and emotions and I was inspired by the notion of believing or not believing in it i.e. believing in the colour red would be like believing in love, perhaps for the second time, after a heartbreak made you not believe in it, or something like that.
I noted it in my notes app on my walk and when I got home I checked the lyrics, and that wasn’t at all what the words said; meaning, I had this whole idea to play with as my own without fearing copying Wolf Alice, whom I love dearly and would obviously never want to do. It was almost a relief that I had misheard the lyrics.
From there I sort of forgot about the idea until quite a few weeks later, but when I did expand on the lyrics I really liked where this could go. Of course I know nothing about what would actually work in the music world or what wouldn’t, but having an idea that even just I liked the sound of was enough to get me excited. More weeks went by where the idea was left unfinished in my notes until literally yesterday as this is going up, I found some time to try and jam it out. Again, it’s annoying that my guitar playing talent is not totally where I want it to be, so not all of the ideas that I have for this I am able to get across right now. For example, I think a well emotional guitar solo would be very fitting for this, but that is certainly something I will have to work on. I just want the bare bones of the song out there as very much a rough demo, to get opinions and see if I become inspired, either by people’s suggestions or my own practise of listening to it over and over, to turn it into the best version that it can be. And honestly, I’ll probably do this with every little idea I have, because this, as awful and juvenile as it might be compared to a fully produced song, was really fun to make. Don’t have high expectations (it was literally written with two chords) but hopefully someone will see what I’m going for and where it has the potential to go with a lot of tweaking.
iPad voice notes don’t have the best quality so here are my moody lyrics;
Believe in the colour red
Can’t look at myself for a second babe
But I can and do look at you for hours
I thought any type of love was done babe
I thought it was dead
But now, think I believe in the colour red
My eyes they look brighter
And so do yours
Hate ourselves so much
I hate you not one shred
All because now, I believe in the colour red
Is it wrong babe of me to rip at myself?
But think of you so portrait-like, I’ll put you on my shelf
It’s nice and all that to be in love
Can’t help but feel dread
When I’m so dependent on the colour red
The colour of love, lust and hate
I love you, I lust, I hate anybody in the way
Is it healthy for me to feel things so harsh
I’m scared one day you’ll go to bed
And wake up not believing in the colour red
Paint my words into your brain
Let them dry, and settle, never let them drain
Poison my mind with that toxic smell
Of paint drying inside me, make me well
Swallow it whole, choke and feel fed
Then you’ll stop believing in my colour red
Keep other colours out of your mind babe
We’re in love, don’t be misbehaved
Tattooed heart in red ink
Keep me afloat, don’t let me sink
These thoughts they always fill my head
Hope I get free from the colour red
It feels weird posting lyrics on a public medium when I normally just send them to my boyfriend knowing of course that he’ll say nice things lol.
If you’d like to listen to my lil tune, it’s on my Soundcloud at this link;
https://soundcloud.com/hannah-campbell-843233726/the-colour-red-original-song
(there’s also a few covers of much better songs than this that you could also listen to if you’re feeling generous)
Thanks for giving me a platform that I can share my terrible creative brain vomits and even just clicking on a post or listening once to one of my covers is really cool for you to do and I appreciate it lots and lots.
Maybe this is the first of many original song reveals on my blog (when you have no actual music blog to debut it just do it yourself right?) but maybeeee this will flop - if that becomes the case and we can all forget this ever happened that’d be great.
Happy listening and thank you for reading,
H x
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