For the last 3 months I've been working on the music and videos for "Ink Won't Fade as Fast". As mentioned in an earlier post, early on I realised the song wasn't heading where I had originally intended so I decided to make two different edits. As I've made the decision to produce videos for all new songs this meant two different videos as well. In this post I want to write a little about the background behind the song, edits and videos and some of the decisions I made along the way.
This song is not my usual subject matter. The inspiration came from an encounter I experienced in London last year. I'm not familiar with writing about intimacy and I never intended to share the details, but I hoped the song might invoke some of the feelings and help me to remember. For these reasons I've tried hard not to be too narrative with the words and visuals. Instead of writing about the experience, I decided to write in the third person and describe someone remembering the experience. Now it's finished, I've realised that the song doesn't really articulate what made this particular experience so special to me and in some ways that feels like a bit of a missed opportunity. So, although I don't wish to share the details, I might tackle that angle in another project down the track.
While I'm on the topic of words, I do realise the poor grammar of the title. "Quickly" is probably more grammatically correct but it just didn't have the same rhythm and alliteration as "fast".
Musically, my original intention was for something that had a light feel about it, in sympathy with the experience. I also hoped I could create something that was different, at least for me. But of course, instead I found myself steering towards known territory with familiar styles and sounds. Not bad; just familiar and safe. I didn't want to scrap this version so I decided to call it the "blue ink edit". I actually considered calling it the "blue cliché edit" because, if anything, it feels a little cliché to me.
