"Somewhere"

Hello friends,

"Somewhere" was one of the lost songs from the Singularity sessions. I remember the first bit of inspiration that came to me regarding "Somewhere" came in the form of the chorus. How simple it was:

"Somewhere, somewhere, I don't even really care, somewhere..."

It was the vocal melody and the way it made me feel when I sang it that drove me to keep working at it. When approaching songwriting, sometimes it all comes to me at once. Other times, I can labor over a part for years - put it away, later on write another part in the same key and hopefully tempo, connect the two movements and then see what's left to complete the song. This was absolutely the case with "Somewhere." The intro riff and drum groove was something I came up with years ago in a band I played with in high school. Once I realized that the chorus for "Somewhere" and this particular part were in the same key, with potentially the same feel, it wasn't long before i was feeling my way through the whole of the song.

Musically, the part that I was the least happy with was the chord progression of the verse. I felt like it was too simple. I was borrowing chords out of the key on the prechorus and trying to challenge myself musically first, and then try to write a good song. Occasionally, I feel like that process can work, but for the most part, a good song is written when you aren't trying to stretch yourself to learn a new little bit of music theory along the way, but when you are trying to inspire yourself both with words and melodies. After singing the verse and hearing it back for the first time, I knew it would be good enough. I still listen to the demo version of "Somewhere" every so often and feel moved by the verse lyrics and the vocal melody.

When we took this song to Capitol and Howard Benson, in the moment, lyrics started changing, a new bridge was written and the original bridge was discarded. To this day I'm not sure how I feel about it. Many of you know how much I love the Beatles and the new bridge (with all of the "somewheres") felt somewhat Beatle-esque to me, but I knew we could never pull of something like that live without a choir. It just wouldn't take me, us, or you "there" without it. So what to do?

When it came time to pick the sequence order for Singularity, there just didn't seem to be a perfect place for "Somewhere," so we left it out. We all agreed it was the best thing to do and that Capitol could always use it for something when the timing was right. Well, here we are now, just the three of us, excited to share some new and yet old music with you as we will be all year long in 2009. We will also be sending the demo version of "Somewhere" to you in the weeks ahead and we're eager to hear which version you like better!

Thanks,
Dave / Mae