I Wish You Were Here

Lyrics:

I wish you were here, so I don’t sing to myself,
I wish you were here, you know I hate sleeping alone
I wish you were here, the dog thinks I’m going nuts
I wish you were here, that film’s on that you love.

You look so good, with a towel around your waist.
You look so good, though you’re only half awake.
You look so good, wearing all my clothes,
You look so good, and you don’t even know

I wish you were here, my tea’s starting to get cold
I wish you were here, the night’s drawing in too fast,
I wish you were here, ‘cause I don’t cook just for one,
I wish you were here, ‘cause I miss you hun.

You look so good, that people turn their heads,
You look so good, in that eyeliner that you love,
You look so good, checking your face for spots,
You look so good, though you’ve not shaved in a week.

But I know it’ll be ok.
‘Cause we need it to be.

I wish you were here, so you’d hear this song I’ve sung,
I wish you were here, so I won’t wake alone,
I wish you were here, I’ve taken that dog for so many walks,
I wish you were here, that film’s just about done.

eamon brett 2011

About this song:

This song wasn’t meant to go on the record at all. It wasn’t on my list. It’s the oldest song on the record, and one of the first ones that I wrote that I still play. It’s from back in 2003, and I wrote it very quickly, in about 15 or 20 minutes, sitting at the piano in my parents’ house late one evening after coming back from travelling. It’s one of those few songs that I’d written before I’d ever thought about being a solo act properly. I was always playing for someone else’s band, or someone else’s songs and focusing on other music instead of writing my own. But I’d still write a song every now and then, but never really focused on them, or thought much of them. But this song was one that was in my set any time I did a solo set in a live gig. It’s just a little simple song, with a very simple chord progression, very straightforward lyrics, and a simple vocal melody.

I’ve tried recording it at home a number of times myself. There’s been versions with just solo piano, with guitar and piano, with other voices layering up harmonies. But I never really captured the song on record in a way that I thought worked.

In the studio, I’d been doing takes of “Restless”, which was tracked with the vocal and piano together live in studio, and had some time left at the end of the day. It was the last day set aside for piano and vocal takes, and everything was still set up, so we did two takes of “I Wish You Were Here”, just to have, not even really thinking it’d go on the record. But then, listening back, one of those takes really worked – although it’s not perfect – it captures the song better than any other previous attempt. The closeness of the mics really brings you into the centre of the piano. If you listen closely you can probably hear the dampers brushing off against the strings of the piano, or the pedal, or the little click of fingernails on the keys. The little intimacies of noises like that were really important to me when recording the piano parts for this record. There’s more to the music than just the notes. This recording of the song sounds the most like how the song came to be the first night it was written.

Song credits:

mister ebby – piano, vocals

Video:

Shot at the same piano that was used for the fundit promo video. It’s the piano that I learned to play on, actually, so I have a long history with that particular instrument.

I edited the video myself, and used it as a project to see if I was able to do a video and remind myself what little I knew about editing. It was the first video to be shot for the album tracks.

It’s just a simple little video idea for a simple little song. I had other footage I was going to use too, but somehow leaving the main focus on my face really worked for the song, so I kept things much simpler than initially planned.