NOTHING PURE IN ME

There’s nothing pure in me

I can’t think of anything

But you’re my everything

And that’s the purest thing in me

Songwriting

I don’t exactly know how the idea behind this song was conceived. I vaguely remember that I wrote the verse in Spanish first and left it piled among a thousand other ideas without getting any further developing, a chaotic mix of words that would end up written down on pieces of paper trying to make sense in vain. That was in 2010 and just one year had passed since I had gone through my first psychotic episode, so it was not a very happy moment in my life. I would usually get drunk alone at a very small and gloomy apartment while I was supposed to be attending classes at the cinema school. All I could think about was music but I was not fully conscious, I just felt impotent on my skin, so I would simply abandon myself into resignation as though no other thing could get me a sight of relief.

Fortunately, years later I changed direction and decided to give making music a try and that was one of the first and most important steps in the scaling of my healing process. Little by little, all those disordered ideas started to make sense and I found opportunities where others would only see a dead end. I quit smoking and my voice started to become powerful. I discarded everything or everyone that would not support me in following my dreams or allowing me to advance in my journey, getting rid of the burden of envy and ignorance. I had to lose it all but I found my peace in return. Because that’s what this song is about. That is who I am.

This song is about the loss of willingness. But what is willingness, anyway? The way I see it, sometimes people confuse having willingness with keeping on going no matter whether other people get hurt along the way. I think it is important for us to acknowledge that our actions affect our mental health inevitably because we are in this together. Nothing pure in me means, ironically, I’m nothing without you, but just like the last line of the lyrics says: “That’s the purest thing in me”. I’d rather hurt myself, metaphorically, than be ruthless and act like everyone else, desperate to trample on each other. Nothing pure in me is about knowing that being sensitive and vulnerable does not equate to weakness. It makes you feel things deeper, it makes you feel alive. Knowing that having principles and ethics does not necessarily mean being unrealistic but, actually, quite the opposite. It denotes emotional intelligence. And above all, knowing that being kind does not make you a fool, it turns you into a better human being. Kindness is the new wisdom.

Production

I knew the instrumentation for this song needed to be minimalist and delicate and that’s how the idea of the piano as the main conductor came to me. Those notes mimicking the melody of the verse along the song are like sharpened touches of sound that almost feel like ice or snow. I really like the concept and progression of the chords in this song. For the bridge and the chorus, I was highly inspired by the score of the Pan’s Labyrinth movie, an instrumental music piece called Lullaby, which is stunningly beautiful and shares this delicateness with my song. I’m very proud of the vocals too, except for the falsetto in the last note of the song and the “when I’m stuck down THERE” line that gets united with the following one, lyrically speaking. Aside from that, I think that these may be one of the best vocals I’ve ever recorded for a song. 

 

ALBUM RECOMMENDATION – (Ainhoa – Mi Tiempo Roto)

As I explained in one of the first posts I wrote for this blog, the Spanish singer Ainhoa, who won an important reality talent show back in 2003, is one of the main reasons why I started to become interested, not only in being a singer and having that unconscious desire in my heart but in writing songs and learning more about the whole creative process behind the making of an album. I admire her not only as a singer but also as the amazing songwriter she is. If I had to choose a limited number of songs for the soundtrack of my life, probably some of hers such as Lo Bueno Queda, A veces, and No Hay Lugar would end up being included in there. So, despite the fact that the album Mi Tiempo Roto contains only 3 of her compositions since it was made under the impositions of a record company that wouldn’t allow her to add more of her original songs, I’m still going to recommend it for it’s one of my favorites due to a significant variety of reasons. First of all and following the entire writing aspect, the lyrics of this album are amazing. She only wrote 3 original songs but she adapted from English the rest of them except for one, Cristales Rotos, which was specifically written in Spanish, so despite the fact that Ainhoa didn’t actively participate in the creation of the melodies, it is noticeable that her imprint in the messages of the lyrics is still very present. This album is really vindictive and has a lot of social criticism, which I personally enjoy very much in music. You can find anthems against homophobia or domestic violence in songs like Cuando Existe El Amor and Dame Una Razón respectively. There’s also a song about trash TV and some odes to the passing of time and certain nostalgia feeling for childhood, filled with positive and even philosophical messages about fighting for your dreams and believing that everything happens for a reason. Musically speaking, the album is very rocker and has lots of guitar solos accompanying the rather pop melodies that somehow remind a little of a combination of The Cranberries and Avril Lavigne; and Ainhoa’s voice sounds much better than in the album she recorded previously so, generally speaking, I think that this is not only one of her best albums but one of the best well-crafted productions in the Spanish rocker female scene of that time.

Favorite songs: Tengo que Aprender, Mi Oportunidad, Siempre Amanece, Cuando Existe El Amor, A veces, Cristales Rotos, and En Silencio.

BIG FISH Tribute

I remember having mixed feelings and thoughts about this movie when I first watched it. I had seen other Tim Burton films before such as Beetlejuice or Edward Scissorhands, so I was familiar with that peculiar gothic aesthetic and imprint on his works, but I wasn’t expecting it to be mixed with other rather realistic and dramatic scenes, which gave the movie a deeper and more serious tone that wasn’t usually so present in other of his films so, despite liking the movie in general terms, especially the fantasy parts, I could not really appreciate that duality in the universe of the movie. Later, when I watched it again for a project for the cinema school, I enjoyed it much more and understood that is actually this unusual combination of fiction and fact that makes this particular piece of art so unique.

Based on Daniel Wallace’s novel, the script navigates through the past and present with two apparently diverged points of view represented by the relationship between a father and his son. On one hand, the father seems to have created a world full of fantasy in order to escape the illness that is consuming his last days on the earth; on the other hand, the son is not capable of believing his father’s stories and holds resentment against him because of this, and, as the narrative goes on, we learn that they both need to acknowledge something from each other.

The story is presented like a collection of tales that is a tale in itself. These little tales, which represent the father’s point of view, are greatly recreated thanks to the distinctive Tim Burton’s touch and his creativity and capacity of forming unique images and aesthetics. The job done by the artistic direction department is amazing here. I personally love the part with the haunted woods and the giant spiders. But, once again, the dramatic and realistic scenes, representing the son’s perspective, are needed in order to create that contrast and antithesis. An especial mention should be made to the performances given by the actors in their respective roles. I particularly enjoyed the bathtub scene a lot with Jessica Lange and Albert Finney’s wonderful portrayals of their characters.

No other song that A Movie Called Life could have fit in better with the images of this movie. Even the title makes honors the thesis and the ending of the film. It seemed appropriate to me that, although some parts of the lyrics are very personal and specific about my life, the childish and naive spirit of the melody would adequately match the themes and metaphors of Big Fish frames.

THESIS

It is clear to me that the main message of the movie is about not creating walls that limit our knowledge about reality and this is validated in the ending scene when we learn that all the stories that the father used to tell his son were actually true. It’s about letting go and believing everything is possible. It’s a beautiful metaphor standing for the infinite possibilities that storytelling and art can give us as a way of mirroring ourselves. There is more than meets the eye and we have a long way to go still.

REALITY CAN BE STRANGER THAN FICTION.

A Movie Called Life

 “I’ve been waiting for so long that my innocence has now become a good reason to fight for this world”

The idea of worlds within worlds has always fascinated me. I don’t know why exactly but it’s something that has captivated me ever since I was a child. This idea can also be applied to the concept of movies and the magic behind the process of making them. That blurry line that gets hard to distinguish between fact and fiction and the infinite possibilities that this offers as a cathartic mirror. The movie within a movie topic not only remains one of my favorites today still but connects deeply with my philosophy and understanding of living. Life is like a beautiful big movie and we are all the protagonists of our own story.

SONGWRITING

Based on this idealized belief, I decided to write a song about my particular experience in how I’ve always perceived and decoded the world around me. A song that would tell the story of my life from a rather naive and innocent perspective, but showing still all the baggage and learning behind each lesson in the journey.

Both melody and lyrics were highly inspired by the song American Pie, which has a similar structure in terms of story-telling. In the lyrics of my song, I speak about my childhood in the first verse and then about my teenage years in the second one, emphasizing the change I experienced when I found out I was gay and how this affected me negatively because of all the bullying situation in high school, going from a happy state into a darker one overnight. Then, the bridges are self-references about my fears and flaws, but also about my strengths and hopes. The choruses are meant to be contradictory and ironic, just like life in itself, and, finally, there’s kind of an epilogue, or an outro, summarizing the spirit and message of the song: never give up on fighting because this life is worth living.

I’m surprised by how positive and happy, even childish. the melody ended up being. That’s not usually me! When I start humming a melody, in order to create a song, this tends to be melancholic and sad, but for this particular song, the melody was very joyful. I don’t really know why that happened, I think I was forcing myself a little to do something different or there might even exist a part of me that is happier than I’ve always thought, who knows! Either way, it remains one of my favorite songs as a songwriter, precisely for being different than usual, and, hopefully, maybe I get to write more positive songs in the future.

PRODUCTION

Little changes were made in the production for this song since it’s meant to have rather acoustic and minimalist instrumentation. Still, the demo was simpler and the producer added new textures and arpeggios that gave the song the character it needed. What I really like about the production, in this case, is the vocals we recorded. Four months had passed since I quit smoking and this was getting noticeable, not only for my voice but for my self-esteem. I’d say that these are some of the best vocals I’ve ever recorded and one of the best productions from that era. Definitely one of my favorite songs from the album The Ascending, both as production and composition.