Given To Fly

I'm the one coming back for you,
When you fall behind
And I will always shine for you,
When there's no light to find.
So, don't turn away, no, don't ever turn away,
I'm always by your side,
Let's leave this place, ah now, let's leave this place,
For where chains will never bind.

Brave the fire, we're alive
Never to burn, only to fly

Here's to never giving up so don't give up on me,
Follow me to where I stand,
No more words now, let's go home,
I think that you can understand.

Brave the fire, we're alive
Never to burn, only to fly
Brave the fire, we're alive
Never to burn, only to fly

The skies may change, but we remain,
Once we were here and we will be again.

This is a track of mine that I came up with the concept of in about October/November time. It started with a pretty nice folk rhythm and a riff that followed it in D minor, a chord I can't escape no matter what the fuck I write. The weird thing about it was that it's one of those that you don't really have to really try. It's like it wants to be written so you just breathe life into it and BAM! you've got something that's come directly from your solar plexus (that bit just at the bottom of your ribcage where you feel those big, heavy emotions).

The lyrics followed on nicely, at the exact right point and place in time. I'd recently met a confidante, someone I had a lot in common with and it was weird that after 5 years of feeling the way I did, my subconscious SOS that I'd been sending out all that time got heard by someone on the exact same frequency of reality. It was also pretty neat to have something flow that wasn't the usual right-wing political folk I'm rather apt at or other such "angry" material. I was standing on the other side of where I'd been before when I wrote it. "Given To Fly" is a general working title...

The recording process was brilliant. We kept it nice and raw - like folk-rock should be. We started with acoustic guitars, generally making up the structure as we went along; there's some brilliant studio banter between me and Becca from the live room which I'm sure either Emili or Dan probably have a copy of somewhere. Drums came next and Auver put down such a brilliant drum track, this amazing shuffling rhythm with hot rods - something the guy deserves a lot of cred for, considering there are a few shaky points from the guitars (done in one take!) - kudos to you, Auvs!

Put down a basic folk-rock bassline, going between tonic and fifths, boosting the rhythmic importance, followed by some dodgy improvised mandolin. Not long after that Becca put some vocals down - absolutely gorgeous vocal texture, watch out for this one before she's too famous to speak to any of us :-)

We still have to add the piano to it but I am very happy with the progress. It started folk and has wound up amazingly country, but I cannot enthuse how awesome it is working with Becca, Auver, Emili and Dan. Pretty crazy, especially with the drama lot running past, screaming every few minutes, but awesome. The in-between pub trips and theory-skiving also rocked!!

I think it's going to be on an EP thingy. A couple of tracks from Becca, Auver and me - we can't think of a band/project name but Da Capo is one that's been kicked about like an old muddy leathery football.

The credits and production notes for it should look something like this.

Da Capo - Given To Fly
Music & Lyrics - Bev M
Vocals - Becca LJ & Bev M
Guitars - Bev M & Becca LJ
Bass - Bev M
Piano - Auver G
Drums - Auver G
Production/Recording/Mixing/Reallyconfusingtechshit - Dan M & Emili B
Photography - Emili B (couldn't ask for anyone better! Em is truly a legend and all out incredible with a camera.)