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If this is love, I can’t get enough
A Song Discovered
There are some songs that as a writer I set out to write; songs that begin as a concept that I’ve been thinking about for weeks and develop as I work out those ideas through lyric and melody. There are other songs – and these are generally my favorite – that quietly tap on my shoulder when I’m not expecting them. Writing one of these later songs is like overhearing a secret. Straight Fallin’ was one of these songs.
I began working on the song because we wanted to have a tune on the record that was in 6/8 time, but I wanted to find a way to write 6/8 that didn’t sound like a Goo Goo Dolls song. I remember that my first inspiration for the song was Alicia Keys tune, ‘Wreckless Love,’ off her ‘As I Am’ album. After that the basic chord structure of the song came from a writing session that Dustin and I did where we ended up stealing a bunch of chords from some Corine Bailey Ray songs and placing them over the Alicia Keys groove.
A few days later while playing through the chords that Dustin and I had written the first verse and chorus of ‘Straight Fallin’ literally just came out in one sitting. It was weird to say the least. It was like the song was whispered in my ear and I was just singing along. I wrote the second verse in the car on the way to rehearsal a few days later so that we could play it that day. It took us a while to figure out exactly how to arrange the song to make it feel right. As I write this I’m listening to an early practice demo that we did where tried to “Timberlake” the end of the tune and finish with a minute long emo-rock ending ala ‘LoveStoned.’
A Song Explained
At the end of the day I think the song is really a haunting story that takes you from the first taste of a new love, through the sting of heartbreak. At the beginning of the song, as is true in a new fling, everything seems to go in slow motion. You feel like every little experience is sacred. From a first listen, you would think that this is really just a nice love song. The twist, however, comes in at the bridge where the story turns from the first taste of love, to the singer looking back on this love from the perspective of having his (or her) heart broken and says;
Don’t tell me I’m mistaken baby I can’t take another day without you in my world girl,
cause you are my world girl.
Don’t kiss my mouth just to chew me up, turn and spit me out and tell me that it wasn’t you’re fault,
don’t tell me that there wasn’t blood lost
When you cut my chest wide open and ripped out my heart.
It kinda stings when you hear the song from that perspective. But sometimes, that’s love.
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