I’ve been working on a new song today, and I think it’s a good example of the way a lyric can come together through connected images.

I’ve written a lot of songs about Auckland lately, but I don’t think I’ve ever set one successfully in Dunedin. I suspect it’s because I’m too prone to try to glamourise Dunedin - make it sound romantic and intelligent, the way I like to remember it.

But this is a song that’s close to my heart, and definitely more honest. It’s about my formative years at (ahem) Drum and Bass gigs in Dunedin.

I started by sketching a character that is a mix of a few people I grew up with.

Ryan had a plan he said:
to win the lotto
in the meantime
he laid concrete
and dealt a little pot on the side
he was the wealthiest man I knew in 2005

he wore a black bandana and a tennis wristband
he made gangster hand signals
and always paid with cash
he taught us to roll cigarettes
we hung around his pouch
like a litter of kittens

I got a rush of nostalgia writing this much, which is a good sign. But writing the first couple of verses is always the easy part for me - it’s often the only part that gets written. By using the images set up in those verses, I can (almost) let the rest of the song write itself.

The first thing I need is some sort of refrain line. This will set up what the song is about. Do I really want to write about my embarrassing past in a now defunct Dunedin club? Stuff it - it’s honest, so here goes:

at the drum and bass gigs on bath street
dancing all night under strobe lights

‘Dancing all night’ may be an accurate description, but it’s now such an overused idiom that it loses any kick it might have once had. How about this instead:

dancing in a rally of strobe lights

A much more striking, if confusing image. I chose it because it links to Ryan’s tennis wristband in verse two, building a double barreled tennis metaphor.

Next verse. After a lot of dead ends, I decided I didn’t want to write any more about Ryan, I wanted to write about his girlfriend, and (of course) me.

you were like one of the boys
until that dark hour would come
when those concrete stained hands
made their signals on your hips

This is supposed to convey that time of the night when Bath Street gigs got a little dirtier (believe it or not, drum and bass-ers are some of the most polite dancers I’ve come across). Guys would start latching onto girls like they were trying to do the locomotion. Gross, but I like how it links back to Ryan’s day job, and his gangster hand motions (I was going to use gangster hand signs - but I like how signals sounds similar to cigarettes). Next comes the pivotal turn around:

the night it all changed
we were both ditched by the gang
fingers itching for cigarettes
and I felt you sharpening your nails on my waist

The rhyme isn’t quite there yet, but it brings back two images from verse two - cigarette addiction - we can’t smoke because Ryan has left, along with his pouch. And the sharpening nails image reminds me of kittens on those carpet poles you give them (what are they called?), so there’s our ‘litter of kittens’. It also flips around the aggressive sexual male, passive female thing, something that I like to do often.

some grew up in fast cars in the small towns
others grew up fighting outside the McDonald’s
we grew up on party pills
and vodka mixed with energy drinks
grinding our teeth in the smoke machine haze
at the drum and bass gigs on bath street

I had the ‘some grew up’ lines before I had the third verse. I like short B sections like this that put a personal experience into a wider context. Drive around Dunedin on Saturday night and you’ll still see teenagers going through their transitions to emotional maturity in pretty violent, substance fueled ways. It’s not my job to judge, but I can describe how it felt to me. Naturally the music here will try to carry the sense of romance, excitement, and danger that felt very powerful at that age and at that time.

I’m thinking of adding one more line in the coda to finish:

the tritones rain like money from the sky

This is a dubious line - not least because tritone is a technical term that few people know (it’s the musical interval you always hear from a hard synth in DnB - and yep, I’m going to use a subtle tritone in the bass during the chorus). But if I can add a final sentence that comes back to my very first two lines - Ryan’s plan to win the lotto - then it will sew everything up deliciously. Money from the sky conveys that naive optimism of youth - I’m six feet tall, invincible and one day I’ll be rich, so in the meantime, I’m going to get messed up.

So there you have it. A lyric that will need more editing, but is ready to be polished on a guitar or keyboard and then taken to the band. The whole thing looks like this:

Ryan had a plan he said:
to win the lotto
in the meantime
he laid concrete
and dealt a little pot on the side
he was the wealthiest man I knew in 2005

he wore a black bandana and a tennis wristband
he made gangster hand signals
and always paid with cash
he taught us to roll cigarettes
we hung around his pouch
like a litter of kittens

at the drum and bass gigs on bath street
dancing in a rally of strobe lights

you were like one of the boys
until that dark hour would come
when those concrete stained hands
made their signals on your hips

the night it all changed
we were both ditched by the gang
fingers itching for cigarettes
and I felt you sharpening your nails on my waist

some grew up in fast cars in the small towns
others grew up fighting outside the McDonald’s
we grew up on party pills
and vodka mixed with energy drinks
grinding our teeth in the smoke machine haze
at the drum and bass gigs on bath street

feeling the tritones rain like money from the sky