How does it feel to have a song written about YOU?

This ’double recording session’ with the sublime songwriting talents of both Hege, a singer from Norway, and Josh Johnson was an unusual drum session for me for many reasons. It came off the back of a quiet summer recording wise. There was talk of working on a good few albums with various artists this year, but songwriters are nervous about committing money to recording projects without any funding and I understand that. I also have been feeling a little bit like the phone has not been ringing as much lately and this may be attributed to my marriage break up and some judgement which has happened as a result. 

This session was a real treat and a great escape from all of that, helped by the location of Hellfire Studios up in the Dublin Mountains, ‘far from the madding crowd’.. It was a high-octane, busy, rewarding 5 days, including 2 days pre-production in the spiritual, spacious reverberating Unitarian Church in Stephan’s Green. The real reward, apart from the great music I think we created, was the brilliant conversations, some of which I caught on camera. I’m sure I was driving everybody nuts, double tasking with the camera set ups, as well as the drumming job I had. This was my third stint trying to capture the atmosphere behind the scenes on video for a recording stint, the other 2 being Kila and The Frames. These behind the scenes recording session video clips are all available to Patreon subscribers. 

An example of a really insightful conversation I captured at the session was the subject of writing romantic or break up songs and how the writer’s partner or ex-partner might feel upon listening to these songs or reading the lyrics.. The paranoia or insult and injury that may occur, or indeed the joy of being serenaded in song form. But It’s not as simple as that, Josh insists. He suggests that songs are alive and ever morphing, and are inhabited by different meanings and indeed people from day to day. This is obviously true for the listener, who often takes their own meaning and ownership of a song. But Josh explains he may start writing a song with someone in mind but then veer off on many tangents, the spirit of the song travelling though many guises and representing different souls (he actually has a song about ghosts!). He even talked about a song that was written about someone in particular initially, but because he missed his most recent partner so much on the day of this recording, it was addressed to him, and became about him, there and then. As an aside, there were also a few alarming ( but ultimately funny) comments made about drummers and how songwriters can perceive us, so if you are interested, it’s all on the Patreon.