Thunder and Lightning

There's a famous story about Neil Young that I've always loved.

Post-'Harvest' - the 1972 album that made him a truly household name - Neil Young wrote and released a trifecta of records that have subsequently become known as his 'ditch' albums.

These albums are fraught with despondency and despair; they are ramshackle recordings that are tough to listen to even now.

One of them was the album 'Tonight's the Night.'

The story goes that while touring it around the US, Young would play the whole of 'Tonight's the Night' from start to finish, much to the dismay and disappointment of his audiences.

They had been growing in numbers thanks to 'Harvest' and were desperate to hear some of the hits that had brought them to his concert in the first place.

For an encore, Neil Young would head back out on stage and tell the audience, "Okay, everybody, we're going to play you something you've all heard before."

The audience would go crazy with relief, convinced that they were finally about to get 'Old Man' or 'Alabama.'

Instead, Neil would turn to the band and they'd just start 'Tonight's the Night' again from the beginning.

Apart from Neil Young's prickly contrarianism, this speaks to me about an aspect of recording and releasing music that is a little unusual.

Like Einstein's theory of relativity, what seems to be happening now from the public's perspective is usually what happened a while ago from the songwriter's.

Neil Young wanted to play his new stuff. He didn't feel like the same man who wrote 'Harvest.' His life had changed irreconcilably in the meantime.

Picture yourself in the midst of a storm. You see the primordial flash of a lightning bolt lance the sky.

There's an eerie pause while the world seems to take a long, deep breath.

Moments later, which feel like hours, you hear the thunder break.

Picture yourself in the midst of a storm. You see the primordial flash of a lightning bolt lance the sky.

There's an eerie pause while the world seems to take a long, deep breath.

Moments later, which feel like hours, you hear the thunder break.

In painting, the manifestation of vision onto canvas is fairly direct. The artist has an idea, grabs a paintbrush, and a few hours later sits reflecting on what could be their magnum opus.

In recording music, there is always a lengthy delay between the lightning bolt of inspiration and the thunder of release.

And this can sometimes create an odd disconnect between the songwriter and their songs.

To put some context to this for you, the 'New' EP that I'm about to release was broadly written sometime in 2020—maybe 2021.

If every cell in our body is destroyed and replaced at least once every seven years, as pseudoscience would have us believe, this means that I'm only 60% the biological entity I was when I wrote them.

Which is weird.

You may ask why it takes so long.

Well, in 2020, I had plans to record the 'Castles' EP—a process that began in 2021 and took an unendingly long time due to Covid and general disorganization.

The songs that are about to appear on 'Trees,' though relatively finished in 2020, weren't quite right or ready for that release, so they had to wait their turn.

Fast forward to 2022—'Castles' remains in a semi-permanent state of 'still being finished off,' and the band and I have headed into the studio to record 'Trees.'

For an independent musician on a self-generated budget, we had to chip away at it on a 'pay-as-you-go' basis, session by session, over a period of around eight months.

Then there's the promotional process that needs to be taken into consideration—there's no point simply uploading a set of songs as soon as they're recorded if you haven't primed the public. Nobody will listen to them.

There are videos to shoot, artwork to commission, photos to take, annoying things to post on Instagram.

And so, here we are: midway through 2023. Those songs of three years ago are finally making their way out into the world.

We all evolve and change with time (though some of us more than others).

It's strange that these snapshots of the person I was then have finally developed and can be brought out of the darkroom and into the light.

When I listen back to them now, I hear words that the new me might never have written; subjects I might be less inclined to explore.

And this isn't to devalue the work in any sense, or to distance myself from it.

There's something deeply satisfying about seeing a project come gradually to life.

I'm looking forward to you hearing the echoes of someone I used to be.

Hearing the thunder begin to break.

Keep dreaming,

Rob