Andrew and I have a new song. It’s called “New Girl.” I came up with what turned out to be the bridge a couple of months ago, from an idea in the novel I’m working on. The bridge is: “Baby, leave me here with my last cigarette. You don’t want to be the only vice I’ve got left.” I liked the idea of a person or a relationship being a vice, and I like the idea of a sober addict transferring his addictive tendencies to a person, and how it might feel to be that person. This song became a warning from one of the characters in my novel to another. She ignores it, of course. 

I expected those lyrics to be the chorus, but I wrote the song with that idea in mind and then it didn’t seem to fit, so I left it out. As with the first song, this one was going to be integral to a scene, so I took a few hours to write it before I could move forward with the book. There was a lot of scribbling and crossing out, but I got ahold of it pretty quickly because I had a strong idea of what I wanted it to say and how I wanted it to function in the story. It’s a turning point. 

I took it to Andrew, who played with the melody. The melody of the verse was almost identical to the chorus, so Andrew worked a lot on the timing and melody of the chorus, taking it up higher so it wouldn’t be in the same range. I also broke the news that I wanted him to sing it, a challenge he welcomed and feared. 

After a day or so, he had the arrangement figured out on piano and told me he thought it really needed a bridge. I went back to the original idea I had in my notebook. Now that I heard the rest of the song clearly, thanks to Andrew, I realized it would make a good bridge because the singer’s stance changes. He has a moment of straightforwardness.

Andrew worked hard on this one. It’s pretty involved. It was fascinating to see all the different ideas he played with, and which ones made the cut and which ones got vetoed (some by me). I’m really happy with the way it turned out, and I’m glad I asked him to sing it. Everything played or sung on this track is Andrew.

The recording and Andrew’s post about it are here.