Helen

Navigation:

1. The Bliss Returns
2. Helen
3. I Wish You Were Here
4. Codail Sámh
5. Is This What They Call Romance?
6. Phoenix
7. Restless
8. Rerun
9. Take Me Away
10. Sanatorium
11. Galway Rain
12. Wet Feet

At the time, I was playing piano for Sweeney Lee (as “Husband|Wife”) and we’d been gigging a lot together. I went through a little phase of being obsessed with waltz time, and we were playing around with one of the covers we used to do in that band, turning it into a waltz half way through the song.

I’d also been completely engrossed by Anne Brontë’s “The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall”, after a friend recommended it to me. Somehow, the two obsessions collided over the piano one day, and I ended up writing a waltz that was inspired by a character in the novel, but recast for my own story. Sorta.

At that time, I wasn’t really writing songs – I’d written maybe two or three, but this song was what kickstarted me back writing my own songs instead of focusing on working with other people’s music all the time. I was also working as a musical director for a few shows, one of which I was doing all the music arranging for, and needed a lot of choral music. I think that the influence of all that music work really shows in this song.

There were other influences that came into play in the writing of the song too, and although the verses were written really quickly, they’re musically some of the more complex chord progressions I’ve used.

The two different sections came quite naturally from each other, but are quite unrelated. I liked the chromatic bass movement in the verses, and that was something I deliberately set out to achieve. The other section has a chord progression that is sorta similar to something else, but I wanted the chromatic bass movement to be the musical link between the two sections. I also decided that although the sections were in different keys, that I wouldn’t try and modulate neatly between them, but rather have an abrupt change to reflect the different states of mind and change in the song lyrically.

I made the definite choice to change the key between the verses and the refrain sections, as I wanted very different moods to be created in those sections. The stacks of vocals in the refrain was something that I’d a clear idea of from the minute that section was being written, except for one line I added on the day in studio.

The day when I had the crowdfunders choir in the studio for the afternoon was one of the last days of tracking in the studio. Initially I’d thought they would sing the “don’t make a sound” parts that Meadhbh had already tracked, but I changed my mind on the spot, and instead wrote their “pirate chorus” just before I had to teach them what they were going to be singing. The rest of the song had been tracked at that point, we even re-tracked the piano parts from scratch after the rest of the song had been put together – there was a good reason for this, involving noisier microphone set-up that we’d tried out initially, before finding the set-up that we liked best sound-wise.

Meadhbh’s vocals were a mix of parts that I’d written for her to sing, and parts that she came up with over the years she’s sung with me in live shows. She has a wonderful knack for adding her own little twist to the parts that I get her to sing, with her additions adding some wonderful extra colour to the arrangements.

Some of the parts in the recording were experiments in the studio – like adding the glock to the refrain, which was only because there was a gorgeous collection of glocks lying around in that studio, so I just had to add them into some of the songs.

Before I knew I could afford the time to add strings, we tracked the cello line in this on reversed piano, with me playing the part backwards, then having it flipped. But, when the cello became a reality, we discarded that idea, and tracked it on cello instead. Again, Aonghus gave some gorgeous extra harmony lines on top of that part. George’s bass line is doubling the piano left hand in the verses, but adds some wonderful movement to the bass in the refrains.

The drums were a lot of fun. I think there are photos around of Karl with bells on his wrists and a tambourine on one foot, while others are hanging off his toms and bass drum while he bashes away to give us that wonderfully bawdy drum part. It was something that Ian, the engineer, suggested might work with the shanty-like feel the song has at times. The looseness of the drum part really fits well with the song, and we left it for the last thing that Karl would track, to finish on something fun and a bit bonkers.

mister ebby – piano, vocals, glockenspiel.
meadhbh sullivan – vocals
aonghus mac amhlaigh – cello
george guilfoyle – double bass
karl hand – drums
Fundit singers: Kevin Brett, Laura Brett, Ed Moran – vocals.

Here’s the blog post about the demo version of the song, in case you’re interested. I don’t think the audio file still plays, but I’ll see if I have that demo and repost it if I find it.