About the Song
I know what you’re thinking. This isn’t a protest song! But…it is. I’m protesting the unbreakable ties between time and money, and the inability to get out of the struggle when you really need to. I didn’t say it had to be political!
Right after setting this challenge for myself I began thinking about Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders and violence on the news and ISIS and all of those kinds of things, but then I asked myself, “What is the bigger problem that lies at the root of all of life’s woes?” From my experiences, it is the disconnection between our truest selves and what the world wants us to be, and what we usually become. The revolution that we need is a personal one. It all starts with our own choices. We must find a personal freedom that exists independently, before any other kind of freedom can be of any significant consequence. Many protestors that I have met have been amazingly inspiring people. But many more of them seem to be unhappy people that don’t get along well with others, and aren’t a light unto themselves either. They are often lost in a blame game. Their actions may still be admirable, but they are missing the most important fight there is – the fight for a personal freedom that doesn’t depend on any specific circumstance. When one is at peace within, he or she doesn’t seek validation from others, and therefore is able to think and act with true purpose and fearlessly build the life that is in line with his or her values. My song is about discovering that I’m not living the life that I want to live and having trouble breaking out of a box that I’ve worked really hard to build for myself. It’s a strong and powerful box! There’s a lot of great things about it. Many people would love to live in my box! But..it’s a box.
Logic
I’m getting to know more about Logic! The drum part is from one of the built in drummers on demand, and I gave it a swing rhythm to match the bluesy reggae vibe. I played the bass using one of the bass patches and a midi controller. For the guitar parts I went through a Scarlett 2 channel interface.
Harmony and Pitch Correction
I had fun harmonizing on this one but wanted to save it for the second verse to build a little bit.
Writing Lyrics with Freestyle Freewrite
As a music teacher, one of the activities I would do with students was the “Freestyle Freewrite”. This is where you put on a beat and write for 5 minutes without stopping yourself to judge. You just spew it out and then look back to see if there were any good nuggets or little seeds that you could massage into something good! The first few lines were born of this activity and then I used those as a starting point for the rest of it.
The Weekly Song 