Jaron's Journal
| September 14, 2012, 12:21 PM Recording The Song "The Owl" | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Hey everyone! The Owl! This is one of my favorite songs and seems overwhelmingly to be the favorite of most of the people who have listened to "Dark Forest." It is the last song I started working on for the album and is based, in part, on the movie "Labyrinth." Listen to the finished "The Owl" song
This song was first written in a fit of inspiration on 3-14-2011. Oddly enough, it's the only song on the album where the lyrics actually preceded the music. This is how I hope to write most of my music in the future, especially considering how well this song worked. So about the lyrics. This is a song about a relationship with an ex that soured, and my reflections and feelings on that relationship in the present day. I used figurative imagery from the 1986 movie "Labyrinth" to lay out the story. Essentially I'm singing from the perspective of Jareth, the "bad guy" from "Labyrinth" at the end of the movie after his will was broken by Sarah, and he turned into a powerless owl. Cheesy I know, but I had a lot of fun with it nonetheless :) The lines "today I thought about my precious one who threw me out" and "as my world fell down that day" are direct references to two of the songs in the movie. Upon reading the first draft of my lyrics, my friend Jake told me that the image of the owl seemed arbitrary given the subject matter, and indeed, those who didn't get the "Labyrinth" reference, which is easily Everyone Who Listened To The Song, would think the same thing. So I connected the dots with the easily identifiable archetype of the "wise owl," since I always prided myself in my intellect and didn't feel that I was particularly liked for this in the aforementioned relationship. It worked beautifully! Thanks, Jake! Now here comes more Labyrinth-y-ness. For those who don't like this movie, I offer my apologies >:) When I went about writing the music, I wanted it to sound almost like it could be a song from "Labyrinth," so I took the melody of the first line from "Within You," flipped it backwards, and messed with the timing a bit. This became the melody for the first line of the verse; "Today I thought about my precious one who threw me out" came from "How you turned my world, you precious thing." I wrote chords around this and filled out the rest of the verse with whatever made sense. Next I took the chords from the pre-chorus and chorus of "As The World Falls Down" and flipped them backwards. I used these as the chords for the chorus. I also flipped the corresponding fretless bass and "ah-ah-ah" pieces from the chorus, flipped them backwards, and used these for the bass and electric guitar parts of the chorus. Listen to "The Owl" backwards sometime, and you'll see what I mean :) And as for the bridge, that was a Jaron original chord progression, and one I'm quite proud of. I wrote it while Rachel was away in Boston in January 2012. And I almost didn't write it because I was a bit tired. Thankfully, I fought against it! I began actually recording this song on 1/29/2012, and had an all-star cast help me out. Jake laid down guitar and the bass vocal harmony. Rachel and Lisa filled out the alto and soprano harmonies respectively. Jesse played the bass and electric guitar pieces and Danielle Gines played the piano. I filled out the vocals, the drums, and the tenor harmony; closing out recording on 6/4/2012. This was a fast song to record, especially considering all of the work I was doing on the other songs during this time period. One final note on the four/five-part harmony. I wrote the ending chorus harmonies using the chords Jake played on guitar for the chorus over the "actual chords" of the chorus, oscillating between 4 to 5 note chords. This is another one of those things that worked beautifully. Thanks again, Jake Russell! That's it! I only have one missing link demo for you, because only one was created. Recording details are below. Tune in next time for another favorite from the album, "The Fullest Picture!"
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