My song “Death of Me” was originally a completely different song called “Autumn Leaves”.  The only parts that are the same are the guitar, a bit of the melody, and one line.

When I was recording Dark Before Dawn, I realized that the lyrics of Autumn Leaves wasn’t quite working.  The whole song was a metaphor for the passing on of grandparents, using the imagery of leaves in the Fall.  It was written decently well, but it didn’t have much heart to it, which is because I wasn’t really writing from experience… I was writing more thematically.  My producer, Adam Loewen, said (in the nicest way possible) that Autumn Leaves sounded like a teenage girl reciting her poem to an old folks home.  Here are the original lyrics for you to laugh at if you wish:

Autumn leaves, when winter comes we won’t forget your colors

Autumn leaves, you’re beautiful; your character is in your wrinkles

Fall down gently underground

Lay still in peace

In time this tree will see more leaves

In colors of gold

Autumn leaves, your history is memorable; you made a home

Autumn leaves, when winter comes this family tree feels empty

The only line I wanted to keep was  “Fall down gently underground.  Lay still in peace.” Although it lost it’s irony when it was no longer talking about leaves falling underground, it was still a good line.  I eventually thought of writing a song about a relationship dying - a love dying.  This is something that I could write about from experience.

I remember being in the relationship and both of us would always tell each other that we love each other, but we rarely showed our love.  I kept on hearing people say that love is a choice, which confused me.  I thought that if I chose to say, “I love you,” and tried to believe that it was true, then everything would just fix itself.  I didn’t realize that the choice involved real action as well.  I think the advice, “Love is a choice,” is a bit misleading.  I think the full message is that you need to choose to love someone and then act on that choice.  In other words, “Love is a verb,” like Dc Talk sang (I can’t believe I just referenced an old-school Dc Talk song!).

After my relationship broke up, I read a book called The Five Love Languages.  It’s too bad I didn’t read it earlier.  It talks about how people express and experience love in different ways from one another.  So sometime our love doesn’t get communicated because we are essentially speaking different languages.  The five languages are: service, quality time, gifts, words of affirmation, and physical touch.  People can speak all of these languages to some degree, but most people focus on one or two.

This book taught me how to act out my love (which I’m still working on).  And obviously when people don’t act out their love, it dies.  Hence my song, “Death of Me”.  You can find it on iTunes.

Here are the lyrics:

The air escapes my lungs. My God what have I done?

I knew our time would come but, not yet

My heart is slowing down. My head is spinning ‘round

My mouth is spilling out regret

Fall down gently underground

Lay still in peace

My love will be the death of me

It doesn’t suffice

I swear I read your mind. I knew you every time

But you had one surprise, you lied

You used to share with me, strong integrity

Now that ceases to be, we died

Fall down gently underground

Lay still in peace

My love will be the death of me

It doesn’t suffice

It doesn’t suffice

Love doesn’t suffice

I was on transit the other day and I smelled something familiar.  It took me a minute to figure it out, but it was the smell of my ex-girlfriend.  I looked around, but she was no where in sight.  Somebody else was wearing the same perfume, or using the same hair product, or whatever other smelly thing  that girls put on.  Whatever it was, it reminded me of her and it instantly brought back a flood of memories.  I could almost remember what she was wearing on a specific day three years ago, just by the power of the smell.  There is a strong connection between smell and memory.

I allude to this in my song “Tired Eyes“.  There’s something about the smell of rain after a sunny stretch that makes me feel all nostalgic.

I can’t explain why smell brings back memories.  I have no idea.  But I do think it is an amazing part of being human.

This all made me think of this other time when the weirdest thing happened to me… I could smell over the phone!!  I know this sounds crazy or it sounds like I’m straight out lying, but I kid you not.  When I was in ninth grade I could smell over the phone for one day and it never happened again.  If you don’t believe me, talk to my friend Brendan Smoker, he was on the other end of the line, presenting different items for me to smell.

“Shame on Me” seems to be my most popular song, which makes sense because it’s up-beat and catchy. The lyrics are a bit cheeky and the song has a good rhythm to it. In fact, my mom said she played the song for her preschool class and the kids all started dancing. If a song makes kids dance, it’s got to be good, right? (Oh no - please tell me I’m not going to be the next Sharon, Lois and Bram!)  Well… I’ve also seen some adults dance to it, so that’s a good sign.

I wrote the song for my Dark Before Dawn album when I realized that my slow-to-fast-song ratio was out of whack.  So on a rainy mid-week afternoon, wearing nothing but boxers and a house-coat like any good hermit, bum, or artist, I picked up my guitar and just started playing.  The first thing that came out was the guitar part for the verses - that simple “G” to “Gsus9″ for all you guitar players out there.  I really liked it, but it almost sounded familiar.  I later found out that Ryan Adam’s song “English Girls Approximately” uses the same chords, but it’s quite a bit slower and has a different groove to it.

The original melody of “Shame on Me” was a bit fancier than it is today, but when it came time to record, I wasn’t a good enough singer to pull it off, so I simplified it.  I’ve realized recently that I should continue to try to push my skills to new levels when I practice, but when it comes time to perform, I should pull back a bit and make sure I stay within my skill level.  A simple melody sung well sounds much better than a fancy melody sung poorly.

Lyrically, “Shame on Me” is a story about a guy who is in love with a complicated girl.  She’s hard to read, she’s closed off, she’s wild, she’s dramatic, she’s demanding, and she takes control, but she’s beautiful, breathtaking, and mysteriously lovable.  I’ll leave it up to your imagination on how much this girl is based on a real person.