Writing "Catch Me I'm Falling"
I'm a big, big fan of "The Civil Wars," a fantastic musical duo featuring Joy Williams & John Paul White - sadly, no longer together. "Catch Me I'm Falling" was truly inspired by them and their amazing songwriting. Here's how my song came about.
A Little Background
When I like an artist and their songs, and they will typically go in tandem, I like to learn and study at least 5-10 of their songs so as to get a feel for how they arrange their songs, their chording choices, melody ideas, and finally, get a feel for their lyrical writing style: I believe learning an artist's style can really help expand your songwriting skills tremendously: In a way, you're kind of learning all they've gathered from learning songs from artists they admired.
About The Lyrics
Catch Me I'm Falling was written in Drop D tuning - that is, tuning down the low E string one whole step to D and leaving all of the other strings in standard tuning. I love this tuning as it really gives the guitar a wonderful sound and brings out the bottom end. It can be a lot of fun to compose a song in this tuning.
Here's my insight into the lyrics of this song:
Verse 1: I wanted to give a lyrical sense of falling in love and it's wonderful ramifications and fears. It seems that when you're falling in love you just can't seem to stop that free-fall feeling once it starts - and nor do you want it to stop. Of course the fear of stopping can bring on a heightened and anxious feeling in it's own way.
Catch me I'm falling
I’m falling too fast
Please don’t release me now
I’ve found you at last
Verse 2: Of course, there's nothing worse than being in love by yourself and verse 2 tries to convey that fear. Imagine you think you've met your one true soul mate, one of the most important things you'd like to hear is that he or she feels the same way you do - otherwise, it's a bust.
Say that you feel this
The same way I do
Love comes but once in life
And that once in life is you
Chorus: My main goal for the chorus was just to sum all three verses in a few succinct lines (third verse comes after the chorus). I feel that when you finally do fall for someone it most often happens very fast and somehow, deep inside, you just know that person is right for you.
The third line of the chorus could just as well be written as "See how I fumble," rather than "stumble." Maybe it's just me, but from my experience in meeting someone I have strong feelings for, I feel like a real "fumble" head...for some reason, I garner a speech impediment and my balance goes totally haywire. Yep...a real klutz. :)
Catch me, oh, catch me
I’m falling way too fast
See how I tumble
And pray this love will last
Verse 3: The last verse (3), focuses on the hopes and insecurities of falling in love. You want to take that leap but, again, you certainly don't want to leap alone as that's a terribly lonely prospect. Your senses become heightened to a point where you're constantly watching for little signs that he/she feels the same way you do and that they're "Yours for real."
Darling can’t you see
The way that I feel
Say that you’re mine and I’m
Yours for real.
About The Music
I knew from the start that I wanted this song to be musically minimal and intimate sounding - just a single acoustic guitar, close mic'd, and a close mic'd vocal. I kept the guitar very simple and forward sounding and tried to play very sparsely, so as not to step on the vocal lines and melody.
For the solo section, I wanted a very light and breathy solo instrument and chose a flute sound. I created this sound using a piece of Modeling Synthesizer (Sculpture) within Logic Pro X (my recording software of choice). I thought it gave a very sweet and authentic sounding tone and seemed to fit the song perfectly. I panned the flute instrument to one side of the stereo pan and complimented the opposite side of the stereo spectrum with a slide/resonator guitar - played very softly.
Special thanks to Sandi Kay for the harmony vocal. Sandi has a wonderfully sweet voice and I knew she'd fit perfectly into the part. She did a wonderful job and adds the nice sense of a "couple" to the song.
Thanks for reading my Blog. I hope you found it interesting. Please don't hesitate to write me if I can answer any questions about this song, the recording of it, or any other of my songs. And also, please don't forget to sign up to be notified of new posts.
Sincerely. Bob McCarroll.
Catch Me I’m Falling
Bob McCarroll, 2015
Verse 1
Catch me I'm falling
I’m falling too fast
Please don’t release me now
I’ve found you at last
Verse 2
Say that you feel this
The same way I do
Love comes but once in life
And that once in life is you
Chorus
Catch me, oh, catch me
I’m falling way too fast
See how I tumble
And pray this love will last
Solo (over verse)
Chorus (repeated)
Catch me, oh, catch me
I’m falling way too fast
See how I tumble
And pray this love will last
Verse 3
Darling can’t you see
The way that I feel
Say that you’re mine and I’m
Yours for real.