Bridges, BPMs, and Builds
How the song My Soul Sings came to be.
"When is the next XWRSHP album coming out?"
It's an endearing question that I know comes from a deep love and appreciation of our last project, but it often puts a pit in my stomach when I have to answer: "As soon as we get back to writing songs." The pit in my stomach is there because we simply haven't made time for it.
The years of 2020 and 2021 were full of consistent Thursday songwriting sessions, excitement for new songs flowing out fairly easily, and the joy of seeing how these songs written from our church worked really well in our church. It was evident that these were our (X Church's) songs.
Resonation is a good word for this.
We'll get back to a good writing rhythm—there's glimpses of it now. Jobs have changed, roles have grown, families have evolved, and we've all stepped into different stages of life. I've learned to be patient with myself here, and trust it will work itself out.
A few Sundays ago we brought out a song from our 2022 release, and just as it was when we first wrote it, just as it was when we first released it, it was my favorite song of the set that day.
I thought I'd share a little bit behind how that song came to be. I've never done so, and now feels like a good moment. Each song has its own, unique origin story, and this is how My Soul Sings came to be and a few details behind it.
Most of the time, we would grab a Thursday and write in the band green room right outside my office, but this time, Tucker, Pastor Tim, and I, went to a house a few minutes away from our offices to try and get one from beginning to end. We got close.
I remember a note from at least 10 years ago where I had written around a few verses from Luke (a book in the Bible) titled just as my Bible did at the time: Mary's Song.
And Mary said:
“My soul glorifies the Lord
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior…”
Luke 1:46-47
I loved the idea of a song that simply said "I don't really know what to say (because words don't come easy for me), but my soul and spirit can sing it anyway."
And for 10 plus years, that song idea never left my Evernote.
We began sharing ideas and notes and Pastor Tim had those same verses from Luke 1:46-47 as a potential direction. We went with it.
I don't remember much about how the rest of the song came together, but I do remember we were really close by the end of the day. We let it sit for a while, and then landed on a solid structure of the song about a month later. For the first initial “full song demo”, it ended up pretty solid.
I also remember what song influences I was coming in with for this song. Each time I write seems to be different. I had the song Fix You by Coldplay and Sinking Deep by Hillsong Young and Free in my brain for this one. Both songs begin very subdued and chill, and then explode in the best way for the last third of the song. Both have a lead guitar line that was able to repeat and drone through an evolving bridge progression while somehow carrying the energy through the whole thing. And both have beautifully written melodies and lyrics that didn't need a lot to pair with it. If you listen to both of them, then listen to My Soul Sings, you’ll hear the influence.
One thing I love to do is to make a song interesting for a musician, yet still very simple for the average listener. I don't do it well often, but I think we did it here with My Soul Sings. Much of this is music-theory-based, and if that's not in your wheelhouse, just know that I think what we did was pretty cool. If you need to skim the next few paragraphs, I won’t be too upset.
The song is primarily in 4/4 meter, but there are a few strategic moments where a measure of 2/4 time comes in. If you were to count, the intro and interludes of the song are counted like this: | 1 - 2 | 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 | 1 - 2 | 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 | (and repeated).
The end of the first chorus has a measure of 2/4, the end of the second and third chorus each have measures of 4/4, and then the final chorus goes back to ending with a measure of 2/4. Even though these choruses vary, it doesn't just feel correct, it is correct. This song needed that.
When we demo out a song, this usually looks like me putting rough ideas down for main instrumentation on my own. I'll write and program what I envision for the drums (as only a guitarist can), put any lead guitar parts in that I hear, and lay down a layer of bass and synth to glue the demo together a little bit. Often times these lead to more fully developed parts or ideas that the musicians working with me bring to life better than I ever could.
For My Soul Sings, I knew the build / explosion moment toward the end needed three things: a driving pulse of some sort to move the moment forward with energy, a great lead line to carry through the whole thing, and big drums. So, that's what happened.
The 16th note pulsing synth came first. And then came the drums.
I'm a guitarist who is a drummer in his best dreams at night. The drum parts I think of usually aren't possible by a real drummer— not because I'm like some musical genius, rather because I just don't think like a drummer who has to actually play the instrument.
The tom hits in the bridge build follow this pattern: A / B / B / A. The first two measures of tom hits are the same as the seventh and eighth measure tom hits, and the third and fourth measure tom hits are the same as the fifth and sixth measure tom hits. Kind of like a bookend.
Then I looped it for a while and worked on the guitar part. This actually came pretty quickly, and we kept the lead line I wrote. It was a nice droning and airy part that feels like a really natural loop, which lifts the bridge to its full energy.
The chord structure from the bridge build through the bridge is also pretty unique. This is a rough view of the chords and doesn’t reflect the exact timing, but using the Nashville Number system, it looks like this:
Bridge Build - | I | IV | vi | IV Bridge 1 - | I | IV | vi | IV Bridge 2 - | I | IV | V vi | IV Bridge 3 - | iii | IV | V | vi Tag - | I | IV | V | vi Instrumental - | I | IV | vi | V
To connect the dots some, a lot of slight chord variations to further bring massive energy.
The last quirky element that again, just worked, was the tempo changes. Here's the text I sent our producer:
So to clarify: we started the song at 75BPM, jumped to 77BPM for the third time through the chorus, moved up at a ramp from 78BPM->81BPM during the bridge build, landed at 81BPM for the bridge and instrumental, and then dropped down to 77BPM for the last chorus through the ending. Truly, we didn't do this to be weird artists. I really feel like the song needed it, and we were able to do it, so we did.
Whew.
For those that don't care about all of that and are still with me, I feel privileged. I know this isn't for everyone, but I also know that this is for someone (and maybe a few someones).
Wherever you find yourself, thanks for sitting here with me for a while.
Here’s My Soul Sings:
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