Ocean Sky - The words

Writing words for Sestina is all about stories.

Somewhere along the way, I got tired of writing the garden-variety semi- or fully autobiographical confessionals for song lyrics. That seems to be what everyone is expecting from singers: Singing is such a personal, naked act that people tend to automatically assume that you're singing about yourself and your own real-life experiences. I think most singer-songwriters more or less have to deal with peoples expectations of them being the protagonist in their songs, and for many, this is a comfortable, natural route to take in writing.

* * *

The ghost of crooners past 

Ocean Sky was one of the first songs where I made the conscious choice of just writing a story about something other than myself, just anything that suited the music best. This was a liberating experience - for the first time, I didn't have to exaggerate the modest dramas of my own, rather placid life, but I had the freedom to create a story I felt strongly about, one that I really wanted to tell.

My initial concern was that I wouldn't be able to react emotionally as strongly to this new "fiction" as when singing about personal matters. Interestingly, it proved to be the opposite; I was quite surprised how hard the song hit me when I finished the words. It's a very simple story, but there's something going on beneath the surface that, in some ways, is just as much a piece of myself as a memory or an experience.

* * *

The lyrics for Ocean Sky were written piece by piece. The story is based on a short poem I wrote years ago on a Summer day while sitting in a train, waiting for departure. A long time afterwards, when the music for the song was completed, I happened to be going through my sketchbook and rediscovered the poem. It felt right for what we were working on, so I took the title and a few lines, and it ballooned into a story.

So nowadays, practically all the words for Sestina songs are stories. I'm having a lot of fun painting with these new colors, letting the song reveal what it wants to tell. Kind of like having beats and notes giving birth to places and dreams.

As far as past-times go, I think I'm pretty happy with this one.

.

Ocean Sky

under the ocean sky

you drown in sighs

you remember

sometimes

under the ocean sky

steps that cross the shoreline

are taken by the tide

and by dawn

you'll be gone

and close the door

head on out

and sink the oars

drift on with the flow

with the autumn tide

you leave your home

come morning light

you leave the shore

follow until you're lost

under the ocean sky

you miss but can't recall

her eyes and how she smiled

when she thought that no-one saw

and how she used to lay

awake before the dawn

in a bedroom full of flowers

with a window out to sea

you gave out for the waves

that dress she never wore

quit hoping many times

until one day you saw

with shards of wood and quills

it washed back on the shore

white as it ever was

her hair caught in its straps

take me down

take me below

show me where

the rivers are born

take me down

take me below

show me where

the buried go

* * *

Music to trigger inferiority complexes to:

Radiohead - The King of Limbs

* * *

"Ocean Sky" - The song and how it came about

©Joel Antunes

"Ocean Sky" is one of the oldest "new" Sestina songs we've had lying around. The intro riff came to me a little before our first band practice with the current line-up, just out of genuine excitement of getting to play with the band again, and we just built the first verse and chorus then and there from a few different available ideas.


However, like with almost all of our tunes, after writing as far as the first chorus, we hit the wall:

"Ok, what part comes next?"

"Umm…I don't know. Definitely not the first verse again."

"Say what?"

(...deafening silence...)

Of course the song got finished eventually, but it took many different versions. Maybe ten or so rehearsal demos of trying on different parts and progressions before we got it to where it is now. And the same goes for the vocals; for quite some time it felt I was coming up with less stuff than I was throwing out, but once I started bringing in words for unfinished melodies things evolved quite naturally.

* * *

So as you can see, our writing is not exactly streamlined. I think one of the reasons why a lot of our stuff seems to have the attention span of a TV-addicted three-year old is probably our pig-headedness in trying to do everything the unconventional way. Often once we get to the phase in writing a song where we could just repeat the first verse and chorus before finishing up - like it's normally done - we just kind of shift gears and forget the first half of the song entirely.


Also, "Ocean Sky" is one of those jerky bastards of ours without a chorus. That's right, no repeated sing-alongs on this one. Actually, there are no repeated parts anywhere in the song - there's just melodies, chord changes and rhythms that are shuffled in the mix and get spat out as different versions during the course of the song.


In classical music, this kind of writing is the norm. In rock music, people tend to shake their heads at us a lot.

* * *

Actually, I have absolutely no idea whether or not this kind of writing makes any sense to you, the listener. This is something I've been struggling to come to grips with for some time now: The song makes complete sense to us, but does it make any sense to you? I can definitely say I've had more than my share of breaking down in tears when listening to this particular tune come together (that's right, I'm a complete sissy), so you could say I'm feeling what we're doing. But does any of this register emotionally to you?




Perhaps you could answer that for us. After all, music is basically about communication, and I'd rather not speak double Dutch.




~ Markus

A film blaring in the background while I was writing this:

Quentin Tarantino - Reservoir Dogs

.

Ocean Sky

Well well well, our new song "Ocean Sky" is finally here! It took us the 10 extra days to really hammer this one home - there was quite a bit of stuff in this particular tune to juggle (such as live strings courtesy of our friend Tuukka Helminen from AVA and Nuria). Jaakko really pulled his weight mixing this sucker.

Right now, the song can be found in the following locations:

Our website

Our Myspace profile

...and Reverbnation et al to follow soon. Hope you like it!

~ Markus

.

Old Shit / New Shit

So it's February 2nd!! How do you like our new track, Ocean Sky? 


Oh yes, I'm sorry - we haven't finished it yet.


Since that track is pretty complicated with a lot of vocals, synths and live strings, we decided to take another week to make it as good as we possibly can. So early next week, it'll be up for download. Promise.

* * *

In the meantime, here's a blast from the past: We've put the entire Unborn-EP, recorded back in the day when Sestina got started, as a free download on our site.


The music is pretty straightforward and, well, normal compared to our more recent tracks. However, there are a couple of songs on it I still like a lot, and you can hear some of the ideas in raw form we've developed a lot further since these humble beginnings. Who knows, one or two of these old tunes might end up as revised versions on our live set!




It's seven songs altogether, and you can download it as a .zip -file including both mp3 and m4a formats. Or just listen to it here.


Hope you like it!




~ Markus

Music that kept me amused through writing this:

- Eels - Old Shit / New Shit

.