Don't Promise Me the Sun

Handmade hope

I didn’t plan on sharing this tune this weekend, but I had a sudden urge to rush, and finished it about 3 minutes ago, so here it is.¹

The core idea for this track has been floating around in my files since about 2016 or ’17. It’s not the piece that’s taken me the longest to figure out—there’s an idea I’ve been sitting on for a full decade that I think I finally cracked a week ago—but it’s up there. I think I messed around with the main sample (can you identify it??) back in 2017, and it managed to survive generation after generation of idea culling. Around this time last year, I had the breakthrough: ‘Simple structure. Hip-hop beat. A little sonic snack. Warm, airy vibes.’ From there, it flowed, but I didn’t have lyrics.

I wrote those earlier this year. In the past few years, I’ve been more satisfied with my lyric writing, possibly because I’ve been writing most of them independently from the music. If they stand up without music, then they’re good to go. But these bear the hallmarks of words being squeezed, slightly against their will, into the freewheeling melody I’d sung over the beat on a whim. And many of the words ended up just being the first random phonemes I babbled out. Sometimes, fine is fine.

But, in the end, I like how the themes of letting go, love, and anticipation work with the melody. The words don’t feel overly polished, and even if they’re a little clumsy at times, they only stumble over themselves in the way most lyrics do. There’s still a spirit of openness and fragility to the performance, which matches the airy arrangement and breezy vibe.

I’ve thought a lot about naivete in art, especially the virtues of folk practice and handmade craft in an era of industrial production. And vice versa, of course: the joys and creative avenues opened up by industrial artifice.² The relationship between the two might be the defining feature/neuroticism of my artistic practice. Keep it fragile, offer something fresh.

Most of the time, music functions as entertainment, as a background to other activities, which is perhaps why professionalism can be so prized among musicians—the beat better be in time so people can dance, the solo better be smooth so people aren’t distracted from their food.³ Sometimes I think that’s a shame, because professionalism shrinks the canvas. Commercial pop music is, more or less, a form of design. And because it is (still, just about) possible to make money from music in a way that it isn’t from, say, poetry, or contemporary dance, musicians are often tempted by the rewards good design might bring, even as they come at an artistic cost. The temptation to remove noise, clicks, pops, or bum notes is great. But if the song is a heartfelt love song, might those be important?⁴

Similarly, contemporary pop music is all about the vocals. Productions are designed to ensure the vocals are always front and center, but sometimes that approach feels like it leaves energy or spirit on the table. The big climaxes are, for the most part, stacks of gang vocals with sounds like pads woven into the background to add energy or lift.⁵ It’s effective, for sure, but sometimes a little too neat and tidy. It’s not really the sound of wild feeling, which is funny since pop vocals are often so emotional. That’s where I think someone like Ornette Coleman’s approach is valuable: those unfettered, cascading solos are full of joy, force, and freedom.⁶ Supposedly, he only played in four keys. Queue disdain from some of the contemporaneous jazz cognoscenti, missing the point entirely.

But you’re here, reading to the end, so you understand. Nothing gets past you. Well done, wise reader.

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Don’t promise me the sun,
Don’t swear upon the sea,
Just tell me that you feel it, that you're holding out for me.

And I’d love it if you said,
"I’m standing at your door,"
But I won’t press for answers, won’t demand a little more.

I know you say you need to run—
Home is what I know,
C'mon, you’ve got me holding on—
Home is what I know.  

And I know you said you need to wait,
To tell me what I know,
To wait for the moment,
Tell me what I know. 

She'll tell me when it feels right,
She'll tell me where to go,
She'll tell me when it feels right,
She'll tell me when it feels right,
And tell me where to go.

When the love that you feel meets the hope that she holds,
Would you wait?
Or let it go?
If you do break your lover, you'll feel just like a soldier,
Sitting proud, but lonely in the dawn.

There’s something in her world,
And something in her gaze,
And you know it's worth waiting for.

Come on give it me! Your heart!
It’s pulling me, though I know you need the space.
 
Two lovers in the air,
Like swallows in the sky,
And, I know, don't chase what flies away.

With the loving you feel and the hope that she knows,
Would you wait?
Wait for her heart?

Come on give it me,
And I will give it you,
And we'll keep getting what we want
Come on give it me,
And I will give it you,
And we will go on living life. 

1. Two new tunes in two consecutive weeks. Hello, tune completion, my old friend. It’s been a little while. I think you’re supposed to sit on something for a while before sharing, but that’s no fun.

2. My friend Davin has interesting things to say on this topic. He designs rugs that are made by hand using traditional techniques, but makes full use of contemporary technologies to do so. His company’s blog is well worth a read for interesting insights into the blessings of chemical dyes, among other things.

3. Somewhat ironically, a lot of this music is the equivalent of sonic fast food. It’s easily digestible and, unfortunately, ubiquitous in stores, bars, and restaurants. Like fast food, it’s fine every once in a while, but even a little can leave you feeling a bit sick, and with no desire to even glance at a plate of food for a while.

4. Of course, there’s also fear. But when we self-edit, we’re just as likely to edit out the most interesting parts as the bad.

5. In a way, I think a lot of contemporary pop production is best understood as a form of energy management. More on this some other time, perhaps.

6. Forests of sound: the eternal recurrence.