Wherever We Go

"Wherever We Go" started life, as most songs do, as a few mumbled vowels over a chord sequence.

A love song about nobody in particular - more a reflection on a sort of idealized love itself - it was one of the very first things I came up with in 2019 when I first began writing music again.

I knew there was something about it; there’s a strange synergy between melody and lyrics that you can feel when an idea is working.

It’s like John Mayer once said:

‘When the music sounds like the lyrics, and the music and lyrics sound together like the idea, and the music, lyrics, and the idea sound like the singer… then you’ve got a song.’

It doesn’t happen very often, but I remember it beginning to happen here - probably for the first time.

The trouble was, in 2019, I didn’t know what sort of singer I was.

I probably still don’t - I suppose a musical identity is something you slowly develop, rather than suddenly find.

My first homemade demo of the song had a sort of disco back-beat, synth-strings in the chorus, and my approximation of a Guns N’ Roses-style guitar solo.

It probably wasn’t ticking many of John Mayer’s boxes, but it still stood out.

The long-suffering friends and family members I made listen to it all picked it out as the best of those early songs.

I even recorded a version that I was planning to release on the Castles EP.

We had all the parts tracked, and it was ready for mixing.

But I just knew it wasn’t quite right.

Jimmy Webb felt the same thing about his song "Galveston."

The version Glen Campbell recorded and topped the American charts with in 1969 is a triumphant march that seems at odds with its own lyrics and imagery - it’s a superb record, but, for Jimmy Webb, it never quite did what he wanted it to.

He had Glen re-record it later on one of my favourite albums: ‘Glen Campbell and Jimmy Webb In Session’.

The song becomes a beautifully melancholy ballad, and, all of a sudden, music, lyrics, idea, and singer are aligned like the stars.

Now I only wish I could compare "Wherever We Go" to a song as majestic as "Galveston," but I do hear the echoes of that story in my own process.

Fast forward from 2021 to 2023, and I was in the middle of tracking an album (and still am...).

Slowly realizing that pulling it all together would take me at least a year, I needed a plan to bridge the gap.

"Wherever We Go" had never left me alone, and a couple of people had suggested I try to strip it back and play it slower - the way I’d always inevitably ended up doing it live when I didn’t have the option of driving drums or fiery synth parts.

A new bridge later, and I was ready to go - I finally felt like the song was there.

But still, the arrangement proved stubborn.

First, I touched base with a producer online, recommended by a musician friend.

He loved the tune, and we had the majority of the parts ready to go - I had already recorded vocals and guitar and had enlisted a couple of Kiwi musicians to help in the form of Grace Kelly (backing vocals) and Shimna Bridget (strings).

Grace is a great singer-songwriter and has one of those voices that is both ear-catching and distinctive, yet perfectly blendable.

Shimna is a ridiculous musician - luckily, she had been crashing at my house over the summer between international theatre tours and owed me a favor.

I’d also called up Chris Hillman, my go-to guy for pedal steel, who had a bit of downtime between touring with Billy Bragg and Tony Christie.

But we still just couldn’t quite settle on a percussion part.

My feelings were that it didn’t need one at all - the producer disagreed and wanted a basic cajon beat that just did nothing for me.

Thankfully, I was simultaneously in the process of recording "January Man" and another song, set for release in a couple of months, with James Wyatt at Sloeflower Studios in Chester.

As soon as I met him, I knew he would know exactly what to do.

A couple of phone calls later, and the parts were in James’ hands.

We headed to Dave Ormsby’s house on The Wirral, and we spent all day refining and refining the drum part until we had it - this odd, hypnotic rhythm that sounded like a beating heart.

And suddenly, the music felt like the lyrics, and the music and lyrics felt like the idea.

And all of it felt as much like me as anything ever does.

Whether or not it’d satisfy John Mayer, I’ll probably never know.

Keep dreaming,

Rob