First Recordings: The Only Thing You Love - bridge (Patreon)

Bridges are hard. 😅

I think deciding on the message/concept/vibe I want the bridge to convey is the easy part, for me. I know what I want it to say. But do I want it to follow the same structure as the verses, or should it deviate? How much should it deviate? Do I stick with a chord progression I've already used in the song, or how do I find one that's different without being too jarring? At what point does deviation make it feel like a completely different song, and would that be a bad thing?

So. Many. Questions. And that's not even taking into consideration the lyrics!

I've been asked so many times what my writing process is, but I honestly just go with the flow, and the flow changes depending on the day/hour/minute. Sometimes I write the chord progression first, sometimes the lyrics, sometimes the melody. Sometimes two at a time. Rarely, all at once.

Most often, I start with lyrics and/or melody and add chords later, with whatever song part comes first. Then, once I have chords for what I've already written, it shifts to chords first, then melody (although sometimes melody comes with the chords pretty simultaneously), then lyrics.

I honestly do not remember if chords came first or lyrics for the start of this bridge 😂

Not all the lyrics, though, obviously.

Which is honestly another kind of tricky thing about song writing: Sometimes you have multiple ideas that you know belong in the same song, and you have to figure out a way to connect them! And sometimes, you have a very short space in which to make that work 😅

I like this recording, though, because it sort of subtly demonstrates a lot of the uncertainty in writing a bridge: does it fit with the rest of the song? And to figure that out, I always give it a line or two on either end; leading into it with the end of the prior song part and leading from it into the next. Just to hear the flow and figure out if it works as is, if it needs a transition, or if it just doesn't work.

Secretly, I have many pieces of songs that were intended to be bridges, but I decided they weren't right for the particular song. Mayhaps some of those will make their way to the "Unfinished Song Vault" posts 💁‍♀️ Although, that will take some going back through my physical song book and finding them 😅