The Evolution of a Song

As I was driving around today, "Let The Storm Roll By" shuffled through on my iPod, I found myself thinking about how it developed over time. Now that it's been released, I think it's okay to blog about the evolution of a song.

On April 4th, I set out to write a new lyric. At the time, I was dating a musician who had talked about co-writing. He had a very modern style so I decided it was time to step it up a bit and try to get a cut. When I would go to visit him, we'd spend the night sitting by a campfire, and he would play his guitar. Then one night there was a horrible storm and we were forced inside. It was then that I started thinking about how romantic it would be if the power went out and he played guitar by candlelight. Yes, that's sappy, I know. But to this day it still sounds super romantic to me. When I sat down to write the lyric, I just thought about that scene and tried to imagine Jason Aldean singing it. The resulting lyric was called "Hideaway". I was in the process of editing it when I found out he had a girlfriend and, needless to say, I abandoned the idea of co-writing with him.  I put "Hideaway" on the back burner to work on other material for a while, but eventually dug it up and put some chords to it. However, it was still rough...so rough that I never even recorded it. 

Well, one afternoon I decided to look on the craigslist musician ads and noticed a guy on there looking to build his band. I sent him a message telling him that I couldn't play, but I wanted to write with him. In one of our emails he mentioned that his producer wanted him to record a Jason Aldean/Luke Bryan type of ballad. "Hideaway" instantly came to mind, so I practiced it a bit and took my guitar to the writing session. After stumbling through it, I half expected him to end the session and send me on my way...but he didn't. He asked if he could play with it a little bit. Of course that was completely fine with me! I got out my notebook and started scribbling out the re-write. Long story short, after two writing sessions, it was finished. And...it didn't sound too bad. In fact, it actually sounded really good. He added a music break in the last chorus that gave me goosebumps. A few weeks later, I got the email that he was going to use it as his next single.

I have since gone to several of Layton's shows and every time, I notice more people singing along. At the first show, a bunch of women cheered when he dug down for the "camped in the living room all night" line. At his last show, the bartender got excited and shouted "this is my song". On November 4th, "Let The Storm Roll By" was released to iTunes and Amazon. 

The NSAI motto is "It all Begins With A Song". Very well put NSAI! I had a crazy idea in February to write 100 songs in one year. During this challenge, I penned a lyric in hopes of getting a cut. Of all the lyrics I wrote, this one particular song stood out. Layton was nice enough to work with me and now we are working on our fifth write. Even if I don't finish 100 songs in one year, I feel like this challenge gave me the push I needed to make it happen. Maybe someday I won't have to introduce myself as a wannabe songwriter.



"We can light some candles
Break out a bottle of wine
Throw some blankets down
Camp in the living room all night"