My older brother turned 50 this year. Don’t worry, my time is quickly approaching too. Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, any plans for a big birthday bash were cancelled. My sister-in-law reached out to family and friends to invite everyone to send in video messages instead, and shared them with my brother on his birthday.
My wife and I thought it would be fun and cool to write him an original song. I came up with the phrase “Fifty is the new fifty” and built that into a verse-refrain structure. Of course, a bridge is great way to break up three verses in your song, so I included one.
A lot of in-jokes and gentle jabs at getting older later, we had a song.
Production
Since the deadline for submissions was quickly approaching, I knew I had to get a recording done fast. I used Real Guitar software with its built in loops (slightly modified to suit) to create a picked guitar part. Similarly for the drums, I used Native Instruments Abbey Road 60s Drummer with its built it grooves (again, modified to suit) to build a drum part.
For the vocals, I knew I wanted to make a duet with my wife, but for efficiency, both my wife and I sang the entire song. Then I could edit each track to create call-and-response or unison parts as I pleased and suited the song. I tried to vary these combinations as much as possible and still sound like a pattern.
My wife did an amazing job with her energetic singing, and she had the best finishing touch: a video of my brother ranting about sweets foods, which I worked into the coda of the song and the video. (Note: the “Magaj” he references at the end is a favourite Indian sweet that we grew up on, and continue to enjoy every Diwali, when our mom makes the best Magaj in the world!)
He really dug the song and the video, and I hope you do too!
