Wild Rivers - a journey into songwriting processes

In this blog post I start to document the writing and development of a song originally titled “Home” , and then “The Way It’s Mean’t To Be” and eventually called Wild Rivers which I believe will be the final title. Don’t quite know where it is going which I guess works well with the title Wild Rivers.

Personally I feel music is all about expression. Expressing something beyond the mundane. Something uplifting or something that soothes a heavy emotion or helps us process it. And on that level it can feel quite personal so as artists we can question the sharing of all this. It is almost like a paradox . Social media can be a conundrum for artists sharing publicly something quite personal. Sometimes in the pursuit of something professional we can lose the essence of something. So in this post I am just sharing a process and may come back and update it. So I took an old song idea, put on a capo and came up with a new working draft. Got some help from a songwriting collaborator TGT who helped tweak the verse melody and I came up with a new chorus. Same chords though. I shared this version straight away on Facebook Live to garner collaborators. It was also about doing something creative and unique with the circumstances Covid has presented us with. You can see this first live take here:

https://www.facebook.com/cheynne.murphy/videos/10221854014476458/

After this process, I made a rough demo and posted it here with a drum machine. You can hear its development but a few friends said it lost the vibe from the live take. Largely due to the fact I used a cheap drum loop from a guitar effects peddle. But what this does it creates a tight tempo that the drummer can then use to play too. Helps when recording and sharing tracks remotely. Also over the years, I have learned that despite being an untrained musician (started at 21yrs) and never mastering any instrument you get quite a naive and earnest interpretation of the track when you lay down the parts yourself, to begin with. Here is that clip here https://www.facebook.com/cheynne.murphy/videos/10221855980085597/ . I also introduce an image from a trip to Austria that kind of embodies a feeling from a nature perspective. This is also designed to cue listeners and collaborators into the vibe

A drummer friend of mine Mat Akehurst then recorded a drum part to that version in his studio. I also had a bass player Fergo reach out and offer some musical vibes and he laid those down to the evolving demo. Great job. No direction just all feel and his own intuition. This is key to developing the idea. So I then played an updated version live here: https://www.facebook.com/cheynne.murphy/videos/10222026821116516/

This then got an electric guitarist named Bill Brodie to offer to lay some guitar down. This is where it is currently at. He gets this rough mix of the bass, drums, acoustics and my initial electric guitar and also a mix without any so he can choose to add his own inspiration without much direction. I like the wild expression or unknown quantity you get when you don’t hyper control the process. This is where the mix is currently at and I think some keys may be good and then I will probably do my final vox and acoustic guitar takes (as I did these quickly to get the flow going).

So this is what you call a work in progress. The wild rivers on course:

If you have anything to offer comment below. Will update soon!!

In the meantime follow the Facebook page or Spotify for new official releases : -)