About a song: Diamond Sleeps Tonight (1)
November 13, 2007
Welcome, new visitor! My name is Ari, the man behind Aries9. Here I share my thoughts on music and life, so you can get to know me and my music. Thanks for visiting!
By far the heaviest song on my album, Diamond Sleeps Tonight started out from a simple comment my friend/ex-band-mate Nathan made: fast songs tend to be simple. He was talking about structure of songs, especially in rock and metal. We’re both turned on by songs that are more sophisticated than just doing the verse-chorus-verse-chorus routine.
So I set out to write a fast and complicated song, probably around 1999 or 2000. The song had a long gestational period — it finally got finished in 2006, and I was still tweaking the lyrics all the way to the recording session this summer.
It features one of my favorite song structures at the moment. Usually song structures go something like this: ABABCB (or ABABCAB). A is verse, B is chorus, C is bridge. Repeat verse-chorus thing twice, then throw in a bridge or solo, the return with chorus. It works well, it’s the most well-used song structure for a reason.
Diamond, on the other hand, goes like this: (intro)ABABCDC. You could call B a chorus, but really, the heart of the song is in section C. D is a very long instrumental section, during which section B returns.
I love this structure because if the AB sections are interesting enough to keep your attention until the end of the second verse, then the longer anticipation makes the arrival of chorus more dramatic. You’ll notice that many of my songs contain only two verses and two choruses. I’m not a fan of repeating same thing 3 times — it’s too redundant. As a musician, I need to make sure I keep the audience engaged by making every section of music interesting, not just the chorus. Predictability has its rewards, but falling back on it every time without good reasons to do so is nothing but laziness.
As this song is one of more recent in this batch, I think it’s a good indicator of where I’m headed as a writer. It has a lot more metal and prog rock influences, and those are elements I want to incorporate more into my future songs. The songs slated for the next album contain more recent songs than old, so they will generally be more complex, mature and perhaps heavier. It’ll be harder to pull off than this one. I can’t wait to get started on that challenge.
Diamond Sleeps Tonight is included in the recently-released mp3 single package, though it’s an edited version. You can hear it in its entirety from my home page, and of course, iTunes and CDbaby has the complete version. Go take a listen and let me know what you think.