This song was the result of a collaboration between Melanie Peterson and I. We wrote the song together fairly easily, and recently recorded it in my home studio. I came up with a chord progression on the piano (I was going through a Dorian phase at the time). Melanie started with singing a melody with la-la’s. I quickly developed a simpler, major chord progression for the chorus as Melanie developed a melody for it.

We recorded the very rough sketch to work with. By the next time we met, I created an additional chord progression for a bridge, and Melanie had a fully developed melody and lyric. She wrote a melancholic lyric that was ultimately positive, and fit the minor tone of the intro/verse chord progression I wrote.

We had to fiddle around with ending the bridge; my chord changes didn’t line up very well with her melody, but we resolved it in the end by making the simplest of choices: don’t change the chord at all.

It felt natural to end the song with the intro/verse chord progression, which worked well as a bookend. But I wanted to end the song on a more hopeful note, so I opted to use a major V chord that wasn’t used anywhere else in the song.

Production process

We recorded another demo version of the finished song, and I used it as the basis for a final studio recording. I recorded piano and added other virtual instruments like strings, synth pad, and drums. We made a “whisper” version of the chorus after the bridge to add some more contrast in the arrangement.

I completed the instrumental arrangement before we recorded the vocals. A few takes of the vocal, and we were done!

It was a pleasure to work with Melanie on this song. Enjoy.