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Blog: Album Sessions Continue, Emotions Also
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This day was always likely to be MENTALLY STRENUOUS for me, as we were going to be recording a load more VOCALS, and so it went. We got off to an Emotional start with Say It With Words, a song that was sounding lovely, piano-wise, but somehow not quite right when I was singing it. After a while we worked out that it sounded too SAD and MOPEY, as I was trying to sing "properly", being really quiet around the microphone, rather than in my usual way of NOT being quiet. It was a right struggle as I kept thinking "This is meant to be different from what I usually do, so I should try and sing it properly", but then when I did that it didn't sound like ME anymore. However, when I went back into the live room and re-did it sounding like ME, the problem was that it sounded like... well, ME. "It's SUPPOSED to sound like you", said Jon and Chris, but I still TUSSLED with it, and continued to do so throughout they day.
I also introduced a new COUPLET in the middle section, replacing the original words which I have never been happy with, ever since the meeting to decide which songs would go on my DEBUT ALBUM and Ms A Bates of The Durham Ox Singers pointed out that "what's a poor boy supposed to do" was letting the rest of the song down. She was CORRECT, but it's taken me nearly a quarter of a century to do anything about it!
Next we did When You Hear A Bird which I think may be my FAVOURITE of these recordings, as it sounds BLOOMING LOVELY and remained so even after my vocals. This is a song that started off as one of my "Here Is A Thing I Always Say" songs and then became something ELSE, and I really like it. We then did another new one, Was This What You Wanted, which went pretty well, before launching into 7 Hearts. I was a bit trepidatious about this one as THE AUTHOR was sitting in the other room, but I think it came out pretty well, despite (OR BECAUSE OF) some "Lee Marvin-ing" of the vocal i.e. doing lots of drop-ins of specific sections until we got it right.
The morning finished with an attempt at It Only Works Because You're Here. Chris and Jon had been giving NOTES throughout the process, which was lots of fun - usually at home I'm just happy if I get to the END of a song in one piece, rather than trying to make it BETTER - and here Chris made an AMAZING suggestion for the end which was so BRILLIANT that it's going to change the way I perform it forever moving forward. It sounded ACE, but by this time I was struggling with the singing (i.e. even more so than usual) so we paused it there and went off to Sainsbury's to get some LUNCH.
After some GRUB and CHAT we went back in to put down a few more piano tracks. I was looking forward to having a go at I'll Fetch Me Book as I'd been practicing it a LOT at home in the run-up to the session. In the past I've usually done new songs a lot at GIGS, sometimes for YEARS before recording them, which has helped me work out how they're supposed to go and change bits around, but that's not been such an option lately so I've spent the past couple of weeks IMAGING I was doing this one at a gig and making all sorts of lyrical updates. I think this paid off, and although I didn't get to lean into the Hinge And Brackettiness of it quite as much as I'd have liked at this stage my colleague, Dr Evadne Thorpe-Tracey, held up their end admirably!
After that we did a COVER VERSION of a Very Famous Song which I shall speak more of later, before having a LENGTHY practice session for the newest song in our ouvre, Timewasters. This proved to be something of a challenge, and we had many many attempts in the live room together without really getting the whole thing right. Eventually we decided to just have a go at recording it, so I went back into the control room, Jon pressed "RECORD", and suddenly Chris got it completely right on the first attempt - it was AMAZING!
The session concluded with Chris recording a new piano track for Say It With Words, trying to get it to match the new FEEL of the vocal. He did this so well that it made the aforesaid new vocal now feel slightly wrong, so I'll probably need to have another go at that next time!
Chris and Jon were staying on for a practice with The JimBob Big Band, so after hugs (and a hello to the great man himself) I set off back down the hill towards home, very happy with how it had all gone but also FULL of emotions. It's really weird quite how much FEELINGS doing this is dragging out of me, and how VULNERABLE it's making me feel. It's the whole thing of it being PROPER and a long long LONG way out of my usual comfort zone, but I think the INNER TURMOIL it's producing is going to be worth it in the end. Having said that, I'm still looking forward to getting this bit done so we can move on to the fun of overdubbimg flugelhorns and arguing about the alhum title, those are the fun bits!
posted 5/5/2026 by MJ Hibbett
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