C:\Music\Impulse Purchase\Spotlight\Flare

It's been about 4 months since my EP released on the internet so I thought it would be nice to spotlight each song.

The first track on the EP is Flare - a duet with my friend Zoe. You can listen to it here.

Flare was written in 2014 about a situation where I liked a girl and she liked me but we never told each other until it was too late.

When we first started talking in August 2012, one of the first things she said in our Facebook chat was that she was kicking back on a beach with no sun. We remained friends through the summer, encouraging each other to create more music and upload it to the internet, but never talked about our feelings for each other.

In January 2013, I decided to tell her how I felt about her. She said she liked me too but was in the process of getting close to another guy. We talked a lot but a few days later, she told me that she had chosen him and we didn't talk for a while.

We got back in contact in November 2013 and discussed the whole situation since we had both been in relationships since then which didn't work out. I mentioned that some of the songs I had uploaded had been targeted at her and she couldn't believe that someone would do that for her. I said "you underestimate yourself, I don't do this for just anyone."

I started writing the song soon after this. I started with the quick D-A-G chord pattern (later shifted to F-C-Bb so I could sing it easily) and heard the words "up a flare” fitting well with that sequence. The quotes from the beginning and, at that point, the end of our conversations together made a good opening line. I followed that with some next-level wordplay: “verbal tennis like we’re courting like I’m putting you on trial”, using the word “court” in 3 different ways in the same sentence.

I decided to write a verse for a female voice so my band at the time (The Victor’s Jig) could perform it since we had a female lead singer. We had a Battle of the Bands set coming up but the band decided not to use it. It was after this that I decided to also enter this Battle of the Bands as a solo artist since I had enough songs to play a solo set, which is when I started this Facebook page. Also I wanted to rap and the band wouldn't let me.

We eventually drifted apart again and I realised that we were really too different to ever work - in the sea that we were lost in, we were each unrecoverable. I couldn't rescue her; she couldn't rescue me. I needed to finish the song quickly because I was due to perform it at a gig so these lines made for a good coda to repeat and finish on. JCB by Nizlopi ends in the same way and that’s a classic and universally-liked song (I assume).

When it came time to record the song, I got back in touch with the girl who I wrote the song about, asking if she would sing the female vocal part. We never got round to arranging anything so my long-time friend and collaborator Zoe stepped up to sing that verse.

It was by far the most simple track on the EP to record since I wrote the song with my 7-piece band in mind so already had a lot of ideas composition-wise. The only hard part was deciding on the keyboard voice to use in the section between the first chorus and Zoe's verse.

It’s the first track on the EP because I didn’t want to lead with the single (I Hope It Rains), Sweets For My Sweet has a weaker vocal performance and because Sphairistike is… niche… so made more sense at the end of the EP.