Writing

The thinking behind the songs

Why a sad song helps, what a ghazal is doing, and how one of these actually gets made. Longer than a caption and slower than a post.

$Rain running down a window under a heavy grey sky$

Putting on something heartbroken when you are already heartbroken sounds like the worst idea available. It is usually the one that works.

From a voice note recorded in a car to the thing that goes up on the channel. The unglamorous version, in order.

$An old handwritten letter in faded looping script$

A form a thousand years old that still turns up in film songs and on this channel. What it is, in plain terms.

Not atmosphere. Three fairly boring practical reasons, and one that is not boring at all.

$A pair of headphones left on a dark wooden desk$

Most people hear the voice and the tune. There are three or four other things going on and they are what make the song land.

$An open notebook with a few lines written in it and a pen laid across the page, a guitar just out of frame$

Commissioned songs are the hardest thing we do, and the reason is not musical. It is that you have to get a stranger right.

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