Letting Go

The hardest part about letting go is it doesn’t follow the laws of gravity. Letting go of things is slow and sticky; almost as if the things I want to release are made of mollasses. The quickest way to get that stuff off is through fire. I was going through another kind of depression because teaching guitar wasn’t really picking up and I felt like the world might be better off without me. I’d struggled with depression before and I know it’s just a phase, or rather a signal. I was trying to come up with another song to finish the album with but nothing was coming to me so I started playing my acoustic guitar. The song that was in my head was “The Light that Blinds” by Shadows Fall and the intro melody manifested from there. I started singing “I’m am starting to let go of all the things that used to hurt my soul” and from there it just kept writing itself. I was going to meet with Ashley to record one of the songs we’d worked on, but the vibe wasn’t right when we were trying so I said we should do this song I did today. We were both going through some sticky situations and we wrote the lyrics together in about 20 minutes. It was a cathartic experience for the both of us. Personally I loved that version with all my soul and it made me believe in that saying “It’s darkest before the dawn” because it made me realize this is all I want to do in my life, no matter the pain.

I believe that when writing a song all the elements have to be in order; fire, water, earth, wind, and ether. The fire ussually my vocals, water drums, earth is bass, wind is guitar, and the vibe of how it feels organic is really what makes it all work. Ashley wanted to redo some of her parts to the song and we tried but the ether had gone away. Frustrated, I tried recording the lyrics all myself and it was okay, but the mix was off. So I went home to re-record the guitar, but then the low B on my seven string broke so I recorded it with my six string Radha. It gave it a tigher sound but then there needed to be more wind in it because Radha is more of an earth guitar than wind. So I added the symphonic parts using the Electro Harmonix Mel-9 pedal which turns my guitar into classical orchestra instruments. Litterally I had to let go of my friend on the track and also a string so that new things can come in.

The nightmare then begin because mixing and remixing this song to try and get that original vibe and punch from the first time we recorded it couldn’t be recreated. After the 100th time mixing it I just gave up and said “This is the song, I don’t care anymore” and then it sounded fine. Ash and I had plans to make a music video out of this doing a letting go manifestation circle and really cool video but on Friday the 13th there was this big moon and my witch friends were doing a letting go ceremony so I got to burn the lyrics and film the experience. I don’t think I’ve completely let go of that first track so I haven’t made the video for it. Letting go is a tough process, but I believe when I get one last prop the song will be really fun. I think it will be fun to use it as a challenge on Tik-Tok of me letting go of things like, dropping my food, pants, or guitar.

I often feel that when I’m attracted to this song its at a time where I need intense overwhelming fire to burn off all the mollasses and spiritual chords that the world and people have placed onto me. The vocals in this song are like a demon being exorcised from my soul. It’s a song heavy with earth and fire just burning the things that plague me.