CATHARSIS

“Once upon a time I thought I saw the light”

SONGWRITING

The idea behind this song came firstly from the desire of writing a very dramatic and melancholic song. From that point, I wrote a song that was originally titled just like catharsis but ended being named  “Numbness”, another song that is also included on the record, Still, I wanted one of my songs to be titled as Catharsis and from this idea, I began to work on this other concept. I had a melody stuck in my mind: The instrumental piece that sounds in the opening credits scene of the movie Urban Legend (which is curiously similar to one of my favorite songs by the band Garbage, “I Hate Love”).

The songwriting process was rather logical and easy in this case: Inspired by that mysterious melody of the movie Urban Legend, I started to play a very simple guitar arpeggio and, after that, the melody of the verses came up. Later, I wrote the lyrics of the verses, and then I just needed a chorus, which was taken from another of the disordered ideas I was working on back then: a song called “Sad song for a small boy with a big heart”. As I said, the different parts of the structure, the melody, and the lyrics were pretty easy to find and put in order along the whole process, so it was clear that there was no other way this song should have been written. I think it is a simple yet quite effective composition where the rule of “less is more” can be easily applied.

PRODUCTION

In this case, the arpeggio that began everything in the original instrumental of the demo went out by decision of the producer, and it was substituted for those little electric guitar "touches" in the verses, which I like a lot as well. This was the fifth song we recorded for the album and maybe the first one I liked the way my voice sounded in. Though I’m not very fond of some of the lowest notes in the verses, I really like how my voice sounds in the choruses and how emotional it gets there.