I Can See Your Eyes

Episode #143: I Can See Your Eyes   (Song starts at 3.39) A demo of 'I Can See Your Eyes' (Song #551) popped up unexpectedly on my iPad as I drove along to my teaching job the other morning (I may have got up a bit to watch some World Cup soccer). As I was driving, I thought wow, that’d be a great song to feature on an episode. So here it is. Back about a decade ago, I was recording 'The Man In Blue' album. (streaming now) …coincidentally, I just flicked open a random diary and saw that I was watching World Cup soccer back when I was recording this demo. Bizarre. Dan Dew, the drummer for the Patient Hum ( my current band), had just laid down all the drum tracks for 'The Man In Blue'. I then asked him if he felt like having a hit through another 12 songs I had lined up to try with the band. With a twinkle in his eye, Dan said “Sure, why not”. I do like to be in the studio... Then our lead guitarist, Neil Sims, got involved by recording some acoustic guitar and we went straight on into recording a solo. I mention all of this recording/ production work, because of the way one unexpected moment leads onto the next. It’s the same with song writing. When I wrote the first line “When the sleep has washed me under”, this almost nonsensical line was the beginning of a whole series of events which became a fully formed song - and then a quite produced demo. (In case you’re wondering why we’ve never finished this….and why hasn’t it turned up on an album? Well, the multitrack recording is on a portable hard drive, which I think has died. Yep. The only copy. Ahh well. I’ll take it in to a computer place and see if it really is a goner. Regardless, We’ll revisit this song some time. Sure would be nice to start with this session, though). Anyway, back to the song.’The sleep that washed me under’ lead me straight into the dream state, where I started seeing a sort of a movie, which was part ‘me’, I think. I could read the thoughts of the couple…it was just an early morning scene, the sun coming up. Then a few words sort of tumbled out of the mouth of one of the ‘characters’, which became the crux of the song. It’s fun, writing and following a story like this, it’s like you’re a secretary, jotting down the words that pop into mind, as you are describing the action.  I don’t necessarily begin at the beginning of the story when I write the lyrics.The imagery, the story, appear like a layers of an onion. It’s a bit like a person’s life: more and more layers become apparent as time goes by. The music came from the same warm, subconscious dreamy sort of realm. I take notes, playing the music that I can ‘hear’, somehow  a moment before it is required. I guess it’s ‘being in the zone’, which I spoke about on a recent blog. Ok, I hope you enjoy the chat this week - and this particularly sort of well fleshed out / more arranged demo. By the way , the Lyrics will be on the blog, as usual: www.petepascoe.Wordpress.com ( plus cartoons, seascapes, writing and links to lots more creative stuff).  Enjoy.