My first EP - Evolution of Love is only a few steps away from being released later this month. I thought it would be fun to break down how the first released song, Overtime, came about.
Overtime Acoustic Version
I wrote this progression on a late April night in 2021. I recently moved in a houseboat I found on Craigslist. A modest sized room on the Columbia River in North Portland. Rocking slowly to the rhythm of the water holding up the floating home.
Thankfully my guitar was a great companion during nights when my writer brain goes off. A little weed helps too. Most of my songs start with a string of chords that sound nice together. You know, smooth chords like you hear in Ashanti’s album, Baby.
Once I get a beat down, I go after melodies that resonate with the chords. It takes lots of painful tries to work through the pressure of my fingertips pressed tightly along the strings. Somewhere in that pain, lyrics trickle in. Certain words compliment the song nicely. While others sound like I'm an airline pilot mumbling over the PA system about the weather conditions.
It’s almost like solving a musical puzzle, finding the right notes that can pair with the right frequencies.
Once I had this bouncy tune I held onto it for a while and never really took it anywhere. Until a friend introduced me to a few producers she recently met riding bikes. I had a meeting with Eric and Pierre, a producing duo based in Portland aiming to support artists with their craft. They go by Caribe Norwé. We had a Zoom chat about where the song was and how we might be able to collaborate.
They took my structure and built on top of it. Slowly tweaking it with instruments the way a mechanic would operate on a car. Leave what works, get rid of what doesn’t.
We met every Thursday in Eric’s basement studio. I had never had this experience of working with people who talked about synths, compression, stacking vocals. All the music speak was new to me.
I wanted the song to be a hit! Like every artist and was all in on making changes.
After a few hours, we’d come to a good spot and listen to the mix in our cars basically on repeat, noticing any areas to work on or possibly record. There were moments when going to the sessions felt terrifying, I didn’t want to feel like they were wasting their time. I wanted to see where my little song could go. It was my first time working with producers in this way.
We worked on lyrics and really focused on having the song take on an empowering
approach.
A woman who is tired of working overtime for her relationship..
Now, this is the end result. I’ll admit, it did take a while for this version of the song to grow on me. I’m pleased to say that now it’s one of my favorites. Enjoy!
Overtime SingleÂ