Interview: Gretchen Lieberum Looks At Songwriting - Page 2

For a while after she died, it seemed as if every time I turned on the radio, I heard this song that always reminded me of her, Maxwell’s version of the Kate Bush song “This Woman’s Work”. It always made me smile, and I imagined that maybe she was trying to communicate with me through the radio! The line “I’ll watch the water” is a reference to two of my favorite jazz songs, “I’ll Cover The Waterfront” and “Key Largo”, which I covered on Siren Songs. Both songs are about people looking out onto the sea, waiting for their loved ones to return. So I wrote that “although this story’s over”, I know she isn’t ever coming back, “still I will watch the water”—meaning there is still a part of me that can’t believe she is gone and is still waiting for her to return. But there is also something about the image of looking out onto the sea as hopeful, not sad. I’m also saying that I will never forget her. At the very end of the song, I sing her name, Serena. I went back and forth over whether or not I should keep that in the song. I wondered if it was too personal. In the end, that became the reason I left it in.

In the interview Gretchen gave me last week, we spoke of how she approaches songwriting and breaks it down. She went on to explain how this applies to "You Closer". Having taken the time and struggled with the lyrics and the melody, it came time to work on the instrumentation and the music.

When the lyrics were finished, I went to the house of the keyboard player my producers often work with, the very talented Keefus. I sang him the lyrics and melody and he wrote the chords underneath on his piano, which we then recorded at his home studio. A bass-playing friend of his, Christopher Thomas, just happened to be hanging out at Keefus’ house that day, and laid down the bass track in one or two takes. My producer played a little pattern on a drum set, which he then looped. Finally, Keefus took a sample of some weird old elevator music record, programmed it into his keyboard, and that became the vibey-stringy sound in the background. So, the music of "You Closer" was written and recorded in one day.

Article Author: Connie Phillips

Wife, mother, aspiring novelist, and music editor at BC Magazine, Connie Phillips spends most of her time in a fantasy land of her own creating. In reality, she writes about music, television, and the process of writing, when she's not cheering on her kids at equestrian events. …

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