Weatherman

This is an old song, and when I say old, it dates back to the mid 90’s although it was somewhat different back then. What I will say is that I was never happy with it, even though I thought it had potential.

To explain…… Back in the 90’s I used to write songs all the time for the band I was in. We’d turn up to a rehearsal, I’d play them my latest song and we’d work out an arrangement together as a band. However, these songs were all very much first drafts. What I mean by that is that I’d always go with my first idea, without stepping back and letting the song breathe, or even consider ways of improving it. It was very much a case of quantity not quality. Weatherman was a victim of this work ethic.

I always liked the verse sections, but the original chorus was simply not good enough. It wasn’t even a chorus. I was so lazy back then. If only I’d known what I know now.

So anyway, fast forward to 2023 and I wondered if I could do something with this song as it would have been a shame for it to go to waste. I experimented with different rhythms for a start which led to a new reggae style chorus section, but that didn’t work. I even toyed with the idea of arranging it as a purely acoustic number, but that didn’t work either.

So I went back to basics. I kept the electric guitar based arrangement and worked on writing a new chorus which complimented the original verse sections. I picked a theme of the weather as a metaphor for the world constantly changing, but yet the protagonists stay the same so long as they’re together. Once I had the theme, everything else fell into place.

When I am in the mood, I find it extremely easy to come up with melody lines. I’m guessing it’s because over the years I have listened to mainly melodic music. The Beatles, Costello, ELO, Orbison, McCartney etc. What you listen to informs what you create.

Some writers get very pedantic about lyrics. To them, they have to be clever and make sense or tell a story. Sometimes, the music suffers for this. I tend to lean more towards melody as it is that which stays in someone’s mind. There are so many classic songs with bad lyrics, but it doesn’t really matter at the end of the day.

So that’s it, the song was finished and I feel it is all the better for the rewrite. It only took 30 years……….

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The Perfect Storm

I love playing the piano. I’m not that good but I like to think I know a few chords, so I can kind of make something resembling a nice tune.

This song was written one day when I was sitting noodling at the piano. I’d got a melody and the first line “Now the leaves are falling gently from the trees”, so I worked out what the chords were. It didn’t take long before the next line came “they flutter in the breeze as they face their final journey”. 

The piano is such a great instrument for adding texture to chords. The “final Journey” line had an Em chord under it, but instead of playing E on the bass note, I played a C# instead which turned it into a diminished chord and added tension to that part of the song. It’s much easier to do tricks like this on the piano than on the guitar. This is why writing on different instruments can produce entirely different types of songs.

A few weeks earlier, I had heard the phrase ‘The Perfect Storm’, and I made a mental note that it would be a good title and theme for a song, and as I was composing this, I remembered this so decided that this would inform the theme. It’s so much easier to complete a song when you have a theme to focus on.

I think it is important to make the chorus of a song the best part. It has to be the most memorable section of a song and should lift up beyond the verse sections, especially in a piano ballad like this song.

Therefore, I picked the highest note I could comfortably sing and went up a semitone just to push myself. My plan was that even though it was out of my comfort zone, when it came to recording the vocal I would prepare by doing an hour's worth of singing warm ups and exercises.

As often happens, I hit a brick wall with the song. I had a verse and chorus but I could not progress it any further. I’m a firm believer that song writing should not be rushed or forced, because in doing so, you only ever end up with something inferior to what it has potential to be, So I left it on the shelf until such a time that I could do the song justice.

When I did eventually come back to it, my mind was fresh and full of ideas, and so the middle 8 section came quickly. I brought the dynamics down so that it could lead into a big final double chorus. I am particularly fond of the ambiguous line “the clock in the hall remembers it all”.

There are two versions of this song. The first was recorded by a girl singer from Argentina called Julia. I gave it to her because at the time, I was not confident enough to sing it myself. Julia’s version is sublime and I can listen to it over and over. It sounds so good to me that it doesn’t feel like I have written it.

And to be honest, I decided to include my version on this album simply because I thought the song was worth it. 

Thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope it has been interesting.

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The Great Escape

The Great Escape was written a long, long time ago. I feel it dates back to 1992, which (at the time of writing) makes it 32 years old. As it was so long ago, I cannot remember as much about the writing process as I would the more recent songs. However, some memories still remain although they are sketchy.

At the time, I had just taught myself to play Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd on the guitar. Anyone who plays guitar will recognise the technique used which is basically playing an open G chord, but then making slight adjustments to play other chords such as C, Em, Am and D but retaining the G chord shape on the top three strings. Oasis used the same trick in Wonderwall.

I started playing around with a chord progression and melody, but wanted it sound sound a little darker, so after playing the opening major G chord, I then slipped down to the dark sounding Dm7, which changed the key before another key change to Bm, then D which brought it back into the original key.

It sounded a little odd, but quite nice so I went with it.

I recently read a book. I cannot remember what it was but all I know is there was a Missionary in it who was travelling around having adventures. I quite liked the imagery of this and so that informed the verse lyrics.

I may have also just experienced a relationship breakup (this happened a lot when I was a young man), so that could have been the inspiration for the chorus sections.

I was in a band at the time and we did record a basic demo, and I think we may have played it live a few times, but ultimately abandoned it as it did not fit alongside the rest of the songs.

Thirty years later, the song was still in my mind and I could remember and still play it as if it was thirty years ago.

I always assume that if a song is that memorable and has that staying power, then it must be pretty good, which is why I decided to record it properly.

Recording it was a challenge because my voice has changed so much over the years and when it was written, I could sing effortlessly over a big range, so the song was written for my young voice. I had to change the key and push myself to deliver the high bits when the song changes key for the final chorus. I think I just about pulled it off though.

Apart from that, the song was really easy to record and I did not change one lyric or melody line from the original version.

A good friend of mine told me that this is his favourite song on the album which surprises me as I always think the newer stuff is written to a higher standard, but at the end of the day you cannot argue with taste.

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Photography by Kevin Petch

Not the One

I’d been invited to contribute some songs for a project that a friend of mine was working on which involved a girl singer. Talking to her about the project, I asked what kind of music she liked so that I could hopefully attempt to come up with something original that had a similar feel to what she liked to listen to and sing.

One of the artists she mentioned was Fleetwood Mac, so I listened to a few of their songs to put me in the mood.

For some songs, I can describe in great detail how I wrote them. What inspired me, how the melody was formed, how they were structured and then restructured.

However, with this it just kind of happened all in one go. I was thinking about Fleetwood Mac (I couldn’t say which song in particular) and came up with a very simple chord sequence. I sang some placeholder words which actually ended up in the finished song. I wish that happened more often as lyric writing is not something that comes easy to me.

I think the only major thing I changed was the final double chorus. I changed the final one to end in a slightly more positive tone. Kind of like a twist at the end.

The arrangement didn’t need much thinking as it’s a very simple electric guitar based song which will be very easy to recreate live.

So I’d recorded a good demo for the other project, but listening back to it I felt it was probably good enough to release, which is why I included it on my Anyway album.

The other version with the girl singer will be released as well with a slightly different sound due to other musicians playing on it, and I can’t wait to hear that when it is released.

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Summer Is Gone

 

I started to think about the idea of putting a band together to play songs from the first two albums live. Songs like Estelle, Stand My Ground, Save Me Now, No More to name a few were ideal, but some of the other tracks with big arrangements, not so much.

To this end, I intentionally started to write some simpler guitar based songs which could easily be replicated live. Summer is Gone was the first of these.

Unusually for me, this song has only three chords. I feel that it only needs the three chords and there is enough in the dynamics of the arrangement to keep the listeners interested.

The ‘Summer’ concept is of course a metaphor for the intensity and whirlwind that happens at the very start of a new relationship. It can never be like that forever, but that’s ok.

I started writing and recording this song in about August 2023. Having recently worked with the incredibly talented drummer Steve Dutton, I asked him if he could play live drums on the track. He very kindly agreed, and once I had his parts loaded into the project, I very quickly recorded the rest of the instruments and vocals.

As I learn more about the craft of song writing, for songs like this I feel it is important to get to a hook as soon as possible. This is why before the singing starts in verse one, there is a little guitar hook. I also feel it is important to have dynamics. Starts, stops, accents etc.

So this song is not complex, long, ground-breaking or clever, but I think it fulfils the brief of being a good live song which would hopefully, get the audience on their feet.

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The First Hello

“I remember, oh so long ago. You had me at the first hello”.

This had to be the first song on the album just for that line alone.

There is quite a story to how this was written, as it started out completely different.

About a year ago I was in the mood to record some original music, but at the time I had a bad cold and could not sing a note. So I decided to set myself a challenge and try to write a classical piano instrumental. I ended up recording two pieces. The first is called ‘Song For the Lost’, which I was so very proud of.

The second is called ‘My New Sky’. Not for any other reason that I liked this as a title. There were no words because as I said before, these were to be instrumental tracks.

A few months later, I was listening back to My New Sky and I wondered if I could turn it into a song as I felt the melody was quite strong. So I set about writing some lyrics and recorded a lead vocal to a simplified piano backing track. 

I felt that it sounded quite special, almost operatic. However, it was not a ‘Nick Ryder’ song and I could not imagine it fitting alongside what I would normally write. Maybe one for a different project one day..

A few more months later I had come up with a song idea, and needed some lyrics. After a couple of days struggling to come up with anything, I remembered My New Sky and realised that most of the words to that song fit perfectly for this new song. And just like that, The First Hello was complete.

I wanted the chorus to be big, loud, simple and catchy because I was thinking of a live performance whilst I was writing this (and indeed the whole album). 

I was also thinking about the very first time I met my wife, Gemma. I can honestly say that on that night, she did indeed have me at the first hello. 

More often than not, once you come up with a story of what a song is about, it can end up writing itself, and this is certainly what happened here.

So there you go. If you’re still reading then I applaud you!!

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Photography by Steve Dutton

Do You Know?

Do You Know was written in one one hour session on a Thursday afternoon in July 2024. On very rare occasions, songs happen like this. They appear from nowhere and seem to write themselves. Its almost as if they already existed. A very similar thing happened with Most of the Time which Georgia Batterley ended up recording for her The Georgia Project album.

What made this even more remarkable was that I also had the arrangement in my head, right down to the drum breaks and offset guitar lines. Could I get this recorded on the same day?

Obviously.

Once I had worked out what key it needed to be in, I opened up a new Logic session and set the structure markers. I then programmed some basic drums followed by bass guitar, acoustic guitars, electric guitars and a piano. I would normally record a guide vocal for reference but as I felt in decent form, I recorded what would be the final vocal take.

I did a quick mix and sent it to Steve Dutton. He said that he liked it so I asked him if he fancied recording real drums for it. I didn’t need to ask him as he already assumed that would be his next job.

Steve is brilliant. He instinctively seems to know what is in my head and then plays it but with added energy and spark. A good drum performance can make all the difference in a song.

Once he’d sent me the drums, all it needed were the finishing touches. A lead guitar part and some backing vocals. The original lead guitar section was twice as long, but listening back I decided it was too long, so I cut half of it out. The right decision 

I sent the stems to Brad Mott who I had used to mix the Anyway album. I told him that ideally, I wanted to get this released within a week of actually writing the song. Brad did not disappoint.

Bearing in mind I wrote the song on Thursday, it was now Saturday and all of this has happened in two days. I was speaking to Steve on the phone and asked if I could film him playing drums to it for a potential music video. He was free the day after so I went down. And we ended up shooting a whole music video’s worth of footage.

I started editing the footage on Monday, Brad sent the final mix on Tuesday and the mastered version was with me on Wednesday. 

The music video was uploaded to YouTube and the song was submitted for release as a single to all the streaming platforms on Thursday just one week after it was written.

I posted a link to it for review on a song writing forum, and got back some amazing feedback. Paul, a fellow songwriter and member of the forum wrote “To me, it's a perfect piece of pop music and I really love it.” and continued “I don't think I've ever heard a better pop song here. This takes the biscuit...there are hundreds of bands/musicians/singers that have hit the big time and never written anything as good as this.”

High praise indeed.

Photography by Kevin S Petch