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Behind the Scenes: Writing My First Song

Abbigail Singer
Apr 26, 2016
5 min read

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4 / 26 / 16 - Tuesday, 2:29pm

In the past week, I wrote and recorded my first original song. CRAZY RIGHT? It's something that I'm extremely proud of and that I had a lot of fun making. I have gotten so many questions about the process in which I went through while writing this song. So this weeks blog is going to be me talking about how I wrote my first song, "Lexa, Darling". (Inspired by The 100). If you guys have not heard it yet, here is a one-take recording of the song! There is no extra instruments added or effects involved... just me and my guitar. It is also available for free download via the app Soundcloud! Check it out here - https://soundcloud.com/abbigailsinger1/lexadarling

Inspiration Behind the Song: For some reason, I found inspiration while watching a TV show. We all know I easily become obsessed with television shows, but this one was insane for me. I'm not exactly sure why, but when the character Lexa died in episode 7 of season 3, my heart broke for the main character, Clarke. In real life, Clarke (aka Eliza Taylor) plays guitar, so I felt as if writing a song would be a way of healing for her. With that in mind, I decided to sit down and come up with something special for the tribute of Lexa from Clarke's point of view. I have written a couple other small things before, but I never thought I'd be writing from anyone else's POV besides myself. However, I found this to be so interesting and fun. Who knows, maybe writing music for television or the film industry is in my future?! Once I discovered this inspiration, the song practically wrote itself.

Coming Up With the Words: I knew that I wanted the words in this song to not only mean something, but to also tell a story. It was important for me to display the love that Clarke and Lexa shared, but also how heartbroken Clarke was now that Lexa was gone. If you have seen the show and if you listen closely to the words, I think you would be able to understand that. The first verse starts off by Clarke talking directly to Lexa. She is telling her how much she misses her, but that the world around her is changing so her time to grieve is coming to an end. The chorus is my personal favorite part of the song. The beat begins to pick up and Clarke's emotions really start to come through. She states how Lexa's warpaint is still on her face but she doesn't want to wash them away. She then goes into the popular saying of the show, saying "may we meet again", and then finishes it by saying "Lexa Darling". The second verse talks about Clarke and Lexa's love story and how they had to overcome a lot to be together. The bridge builds up a strong emotional cry coming from Clarke, who says that she knew they had to fight for their relationship, but the constellations finally aligned. The end of the song repeats the popular saying of "may we meet again" three times, and then finishes with Clarke saying "Lexa, in heaven". Heartbreaking!!!

Coming Up With the Chords: There was no specific way that I came up with the chords to this song. I was just messing around with the capo on the 3rd fret, which felt the most comfortable for my voice. I then started playing common chords, but adding extra accents in order to make it different from normal. A nice pattern feel into place quite easily actually and then I just started singing with the chords. I had to make a few changes, but overall it all worked out from the very beginning. The original chords are just G, C, and Em. However, with the changes I made, they are actually G7, Cadd9, Em7. I also place both my ring and pinky fingers on the bottom two strings on the third fret in order to give it a little more life.

Recording Process: After I finished writing the song, I decided to play it for a couple of people first to see what they thought about it. It turns out that these few people actually loved it and thought that I should record it so I could put it out there. I never actually intended on doing this or sharing it with everyone, but it turns out that the encouragement of my friends persuaded me to do so. When I first started to record, I had a vision of what background instruments and what effects I wanted to use, but as it turned out, I loved the acoustic version so much better. So I decided to stop with all the editing and stuff, and just take a seat and record myself singing while playing guitar. Obviously this version is not going to be perfect, because there is no editing, but I love it. I think it brings a level of realness to the song. Overall it took me about an hour to record and 4 to 5 takes total.

The Reaction: I was actually super nervous to put this song out. It was the first time I was ever going to display a song that I actually wrote. I was anxious to see the reaction and how people felt about the song. It turns out that they loved it, which makes me so so happy. People even downloaded the song and are continuing to listen to it everyday. I never thought someone would have one of my own original songs on their phones, but now over 100 people do after downloading it! I'm so glad with the decision I made to post the song. It gave me encouragement to keep moving forward with singing, and also with writing my own content.

Since Producing My First Original: Since posting, people have been listening like crazy! Even a little over 100 people downloaded the song, so far! INSANE!! Also everyone on twitter has been very supportive and tweeting it to the cast and crew of The 100. Everyone is trying so hard to get them to hear the song, which means the world to me. Other than that, I have just been working on a few other ideas. I haven't started writing another song about any shows, but more personal ones that revolve around me. I haven't recorded any of these new ideas just because I want to complete each project before moving forward with all of my new ones. I also have been recording a couple new YouTube covers that are going to be going up in the following weeks.

Personal Reflection: Like I said before, I was SO nervous to post this song. It was the first time people were truly going to hear my original content, and I was anxious to see what their reaction would be. Luckily, I have the best supporters in the world and they loved it. It makes me so happy to see this reaction that I am getting and it truly does encourage me to continue writing new music. The best thing ever is when I am driving, have my playlist on shuffle and my own song comes on. I love it, even though it's a little embarrassing when other people are in the car (we still bump to it though)!

- xoxo, Abs