See is a track that I have never been truly happy with until very recently. One of my favourite tracks from the EtherReal days, was Driving, and when I started writing this, I was hoping that it would be something like that. It was certainly long enough, but once the music was done, I felt there was something sadly lacking, so I put it away for a while. When I came back to it a few months later, I had a few couplets of lyrics that I had wanted to put in:
"I wanna see the world today / I wanna go so far away I wanna feel the sun on my face in a different place where you're with me...
I wanna feel the world today / I wanna go where people will say Hello, how are you, have a seat, have a drink And if it's not too much, would you like to stay forever..."
Considering the song was, and continues to be over 10 minutes in length, this isn't a lot of lyrics to go around. I tried to write more, by lyrics aren't my strong suit most of the time.
It wasn't until I started working with Archibald in 2007, a year later, that this song really began to take the life I wanted it to. I had him in for a keyboard session, really wanting him to play on Port Moody, but he had heard some of my stuff, and really wanted to work on See instead. I was skeptical because I had just about decided that I was going to scrap the song entirely. But when he played over top of the track, it was as though he had already thought about what he was going to do, because what he played is basically what appears in the song -- a 9-minute soliloquy of piano jamming. He went so far outside of what I had written, that the chords weren't matching, but what he played was definitely better. So I ended up rearranging the music to suit the piano, and was quite happy with the result. He had given it a worldly feel that I hadn't, and it fit the song perfectly.
After that, it was easy to put the lyrics in the song, because the piano phrases filled out all the dead spots. So it became an album track for Glory after all... but I still wasn't really happy with it. Somewhere between arranging and mastering there was a glitch, either in my brain or with my computer (or both), but I lost the work file for See, and ended up having to master the track using a high res mp3 instead of a wav. There was some audio distortion I couldn't get rid of.
I had wanted some remixes of this for the Port Moody single but there wasn't one. In any case, the missing source file made such things more difficult than they needed to be. In November of 2008, however, I ended up doing a completely new version of the song, using Archie's original recording, but with an all new arrangement. It appears on the Collexion remix album, but I originally did it for Archie's use, so he could play the song in between sets at his various gigs. The other alteration is the addition of a new lyric:
"...And i'll go on a boat or a plane or train
I'll even take my shoes off and just walk down the lane
And as the fresh air cleanses my heart and my brain
I'll think of you and how we soon will be together again..."
Like Driving, See is a song that reflects my sometimes whimsical need to escape my surroundings once in a while. Interestingly enough, the theme of travel comes up a lot when I (attempt to) write lyrics, which is odd, since I don't do much travelling at all, and in fact, am afraid of flying.
VERSIONS
- See (Original Version) (10:09)
written, produced and arranged by Perpetual Emotion Machine.
2006: The original no-piano version, that appears on some very early demos of Glory. withdrawn. - See (Album Version 1) (10:27)
written by Perpetual Emotion Machine and Archibald Macdonald.
produced and arranged by Perpetual Emotion Machine.
keyboards by Archibald Macdonald.
2007: The first album version which appeared on the first downloadable versions of Glory. Lyrics do not include "And I'll go on a boat..." section. - See (Album Version 2) (10:28)
written by Perpetual Emotion Machine and Archibald Macdonald.
produced and arranged by Perpetual Emotion Machine.
keyboards by Archibald Macdonald.
2007: Same music, with a new vocal take, and the extra vocals not included on Version 1. Current downloadable bundles of Glory feature this version.
- See (Excursion 2009) (10:28)
written by Perpetual Emotion Machine and Archibald Macdonald.
produced and arranged by Perpetual Emotion Machine.
keyboards by Archibald Macdonald.
2008: Brand new production, with piano and string parts from previous version in tact.
Click on any of the above to view details and listen to the track.
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