This one was hard.
Correction – It was easy to start, but hard to finish. The bassline came easy. It’s a downer that evokes downer emotions and thoughts, and so informed the direction of the song. I thumbed through my song ideas and found a match to that tone in “Skittish”. Then the lyrics wrote themselves – A guy who’s scared of everything, and how it makes him distrust everything and everyone.
Then I recorded the vocals. And recorded them again. And again. Re-wrote the chorus. Re-wrote the pre-chorus. Recorded vocals again. Threw away the chorus. Threw away the pre-chorus. Re-recorded vocals. Dumped the chorus. Re-…
You get the idea. In the end, I had a more traditional rock song, with alternative influences here and there. Not as fun or funky as I usually do, but still happy how (and that) it turned out.
And after thinking about it a bit, realized this one was a little closer to me than I thought. When crap happens very close to you, you become That Guy who jumps at every sound. And that letting that episodic fear out took a bit of carving to home in on and discover. Cathartic might be the right word here.
Ladies and gentlemen, dropping 4/19/23, Skittish.
Presave if you’re into that. No pressure.