totally meant 2 B

2 much Prince in my life. Eye won’t really write my words like that. OR WILL I?

Anyways, there’s a curious case of songs that you are totally meant to have, ones that defy all logic and everything to be written. I’ve been fortunate enough to have at least one sort of miraculous song, that being Ooh, Rode Off! from Honeybear.

So I got home from New Mexico last summer, and went out in Wicker Park looking for a job. While doing so, I was listening to music, and was way into it, certainly (it was Deerhunter’s Microcastle, if you must know). But since I was listening to music, it was going to be near-impossible to think of any words of my own. But as I was hearing “Nothing Ever Happened” for the first time, a riff of my own popped into my head, but I was nowhere close enough to home yet to write it down. I ended up finding a job (sort of, long story) that day, or at least a fair application, and went home, and as soon as I got home, I managed to actually remember the riff I had concocted perfectly, without a hitch or any sort of change to it.

6.2.08 (Ooh, Rode Off)

So having this triumphant riff in my library, I fleshed it out into a full little ditty. Note that at this time, I was still adhering to the idea that the song should bust into “Rise Up” (a song previously blogged about) in the middle, before exploding back into the normal song. This was a terrible idea. Thank Goodness I managed to hack together a normal version of the song. I had gummed up the file so poorly, uuuugggghhh eeedddiiiittttiiiinnnng.

Anyways, here’s that first version, with a goofy scratch vocal of how I wanted the melody to go.

Ooh Rode Off Scratch Vocals

So, having that melody, I went off to have an interview for a job. I didn’t have pen or paper, and I ended up having to wait for over an hour at a Starbucks, but lyrics for the melody started flying into my head, spurned by a dream I’d had about a friend riding off on a bicycle (which in the dream meant that she would always be watching over me, but off in the distance and never in my presence. i can’t ride a bike). Also there was a sign in the window that said “love what you do,” and this mixed into my waiting daydream about the dream.

So, without pen or paper, I waited for an hour, then had an interview for half an hour, having to think about other things, yet when I got home, I wrote down every single lyric I thought of, despite all the things that should have made me forgot them completely (I got that job, btw). So flying in the face of forgetfulness, I wrote Ooh, Rode Off! and got a killer song.

I don’t know, maybe it’s not so miraculous, but it sure seems it to me. Cha cha cha.