Stars

“Moons and Junes and ferris wheels,
The dizzy dancing way that you feel
As every fairy tale comes real,
I’ve looked at love that way.”

“But now it’s just another show.
You leave ’em laughing when you go
And if you care, don’t let them know,
Don’t give yourself away.”

“I’ve looked at love from both sides now,
from give and take, and still somehow
it’s love’s illusions that I recall.
I really don’t know love at all.”

This was written in 2013, whilst I was still finding my lyrical feet. It is one of the more unusual works in that the music came first before the words. The meaning again, given the circumstances at the time, self explanatory. The music came, like a lot of the tracks at that time, from free MIDI piano loops carefully stitched together along with Cubase’s chord assistant to help me form the basis of the track.

It didnt have any story to it as such; if anything, its probably a sort-of-accidental-Coldplay/R&B-ish kind of love song. I say Coldplay because while it does have structure, it does kind of veer off in its own direction from time to time, as opposed to being conventional. But, that is quite a loose comparison. If anything, it is more soulful than that.

….but it does have the obvious dark edges of the time though, because it talks of people in different dimensions to each other and the only place they can be together again is in the stars in the heavens. Basically, the performer is singing to a ghost. It is, I guess in some ways, an R&B version of Marillion’s You’re Gone, but with a not-quite-that-heartbreakingly-sad theme; Where You’re Gone mourns the loss of the other person and tries to tell itself that it’ll be alright in the end, Stars is more a case of I know where you are, I know where to find you, I still keep my positive memories and in our own way, we’ll never be apart.

Which I guess is probably not too different to what Hogarth was saying when he wrote You’re Gone, but he didnt write it as a soul song LOLZ.

The original cut was done by me with the Alicia’s Keys piano vst and there was a brief, very very brief, cursory sniff of interest from Australia, until she found out that I didnt write it with a real piano like she would have done and then the trail went cold. No matter really, much as I love her work, it wasn’t written for her.

It was written as catharsis for me in the 18 months after I was widowed. It was released with my vocal and nothing else but piano on the No Expectations album and was a critical part of that cathartic journey. Made it sound more like it had been sung by Tom Waits though, which was not quite what I was looking for, LOLZ.

So, when Suno came along, I did a couple of versions, keeping my original piano track and the melody, but the voices were done with a black, male baritone voice emulation and a black female soul voice emulation as separate versions; and it proved to me, what I knew all along (especially the female vocal one) …its a bloody good song, with a damned good melody, a damned good hook and a bloody good lyric that is as good as anything that was commercially available at the time.

Its a song that I’m very proud of.

Stars

Dont think I believe in heaven
But I know its where you’ll be
But the only place, that you should be now
Is right here next to me

I tried to hold so tightly onto hope
Cos you meant so much to me
Now I know theres so many words I should have spoke
and guilt is in my tears

Even stars need the dark to shine
And the rain always needs to fall
Whisper your wish into the palm of your hand
And set it free before you start to fall

Though you’re thousands of miles away from home
In a different world to me
Our two souls will never be apart…
You stole my heart from me

Even stars need the dark to shine
And the rain always needs to fall
Whisper your wish into the palm of your hand
And set it free before you start to fall

Heaven sends you like the morning sun
But we know we shouldnt be here
Trying so hard to sleep alone at night
Would be easier if you were near

When this distance is keeping us apart
Remember I still hold you deep inside my heart
And when this night together, together cant be ours…

Just close your eyes and meet me in the stars…