Fourth Day, fourth song. When the idea for this song came during ten minutes in the warm winter mid-day sun, I had envisioned it much more aggressive and screamy. But of course, the time limitations just gave me enough wiggle room to produce it more like a straightforward blues shuffle.

And this is how it went down:

Around 12:45 p.m. - first idea. I had this intensive shuffle in mind, driving forward and then someone who is fighting and eventually accepting ghosts from the past. Seven hours to go, let the idea sink in.

8:00 p.m. - Sitting down to write the song. The initial lyric’s line “Guarding the Spirit I kept. But I ran out of spirits after the first chorus. Good inspiration: let’s cycle. The past, the now, the future. Most of the lyrics then flowed.

9:15 p.m. - recording. This one I produced a little different. To save time and grief I looped a lot. The guitar and the bass are both copy and pasted to make up the song. I cut out some slack in the middle where I had anticipated a guitar solo. I had two guitar tracks where I was able to overlap regions and record independently. The chorus was the hardest part to come up with and eventually turned out not my brightest piece of work.

10:00 p.m. - recording vocals. Huh, that turned out more difficult than I thought. I wanted a certain tone and timbre which somehow did not work out as planned. Maybe a better producer or sound technican would have saved the day. Well, I made it eventually.

11:00 p.m. - mixing. Difficult to balance.

11:15 p.m. - Mastering

What did I learn today?

Lesson 1: determine your desired key BEFORE recording. Turned out that A-major was not the best choice. The guitar was already done when I found out.