David Alan Wright

Written: 11.07.03 / Nashville, TN
First Recorded: 12.03.03 / Nashville, TN / Belmont University, Mike Curb School of Music Business (now Mike Curb College of Entertainment and Music Business), Studio C
Appears on: Previously Unreleased

The Irving Sessions // Vol. Two: Rhythm of Falling
01.22.2009 / Minneapolis, MN

Video:

Rhythm of Falling (Irving Sessions) from David Wright on Vimeo.

Audio:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

I thought it would be fitting to follow “Divin’ In” with a song recorded exactly one year later, to the day, in Studio C at Belmont University.  Studio C is the smallest of the three main studios on campus, as the A-Z hierarchy tends to hold up in most complexes, and my friend Justin and I were just completing our Audio One course which granted us access to the studios for personal projects.  While this introduction was as far as I would attempt to take my hands-on engineering skills, Justin has gone on to work with artists like Mat Kearney, Rachael Yamagata, Sara Bareilles, Josh Kelley, Butterfly Boucher and Jeremy Lister.  Justin’s been through Minneapolis twice now since my transition to the cities in March, once with Bareilles and once with Yamagata, running lighting for the former and  rocking out with the latter (it was a few nights after his stop at the Fine Line he could be found holding down the back of stage left on Leno, singing BGVs and playing percussion and keyboard for Yamagata).  It’s friends like Justin and the joy they get out of their craft that push me to keep doing this in some capacity.

So, imagine a chilly but manageable early winter season in Nashville.  Two-thousand-and-three was winding down, and me, a sophomore this go-round, coming off a busy fall of writing, rehearsing, performing and chasing girls to the best of my abilities, (and having just written and recorded a few songs about such activity), “Rhythm of Falling” sort of came out of nowhere.  A concise song by my standards (I tend to want to state and then restate my point multiple times for emphasis), “Rhythm of Falling” originally clocked in at just under 3 minutes in telling of youthful romance as the air is beginning to turn (“When the breeze is like this / defense stands no chance”).  It was sort of the song I didn’t try to write, coming after a number of songs that included many revisions, many hours in the studio in effort to polish.  Here, instead, we did the song in just a few takes and kept the instrumentation straightforward with vocals and guitar, leaving with the final mix on CD that night.

I particularly like the cadence of the chorus:

Rhythm of Fall / Falling in Love

I didn’t intend for this lyric to mean anything more than simply “falling in love”.  You know, a short and sweet hook that doesn’t have to include a rhyme.  However, 5 years later, I feel the timing attempts to bring in undertones of the Fall season: the changing color of leaves, hooded sweatshirts, cold fingers trying to compose outdoors and feelings of love either starting to actualize or, in contrast, hibernating until greener pastures arrive with thawing weather.  There’s that rush to find someone with whom you can enjoy wearing pea coats and scarves around town while looking at Christmas lights or navigating office dynamics at the obligatory party.  This song is about that part of the early Holiday season.

I think this song might make its way onto the actual album that comes (fingers crossed) from these sessions.  I definitely hear piano, cello, slight percussion and BGVs on the re-re-make.

Version 1 / Recorded 12.03.03, Nashville, TN

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Version 2 / Recorded 01.22.09, Minneapolis, MN

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

This entry was posted by David on Thursday, January 22nd, 2009 at 3:34 am. It is filed under Irving Sessions, Video, demos, mp3, music and has these tags: Belmont, Belmont Boulevard, Belmont Studios, Belmont University Studios, david alan wright, Irving Sessions, Mike Curb College of Entertainment, Mike Curb College of Entertainment and Music Business, Mike Curb School of Music Business, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Nashville, Rhythm of Falling, songwriting, Tennessee, the irving sessions, uptown. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.