FINE,

FINE,

I’ll do an EP with like, five songs and production and all that, and now nobody can ask me to do any songwriting ever again. Like, I might still do it, but this project is pure press-ganging because if I don’t release any of the songs I’ve written I’m a little bit scared my friends and family will release them for me by force. You know I had to turn this into a university assignment to get it done? I need external motivation that bad apparently. Anyway, I’m really proud of this entire thing; I don’t think I’m cool enough to do an actually commentary album, but I want to, so I’ll do it here. ‘Miranda Ashford’ came almost entirely from the name; I do that in TTRPG a lot, I find a name and find a story for somebody named that. In this case, it’s about when a girl is bicurious (but not bisexual) at you, and how that feels. ‘Constellations’ is one of those fun little legacy songs. I think the lyrics are pretty straightforward, so I’ll just say that this one went from being ‘absolute hell’ and ‘on the chopping block’ to ‘my second-favourite instrumentation on the album’ in the span of a single afternoon. ‘Silver’ spawned entirely from the time my sister got a big role in a school musical and I didn’t, and I had a little tantrum about it. Fortunately, the tantrum slapped, and I also ended up tecching on that show instead of acting, which ended up being way more fun. ‘Thin Ice’ is my most explicitly suicidal song, I think, which is wild because I wrote it when I was doing pretty well. I think my inspiration was partly just… The vibe of passive ideation and not taking care of yourself, and also a bit of “What if Dear Evan Hansen was like… Good?” I have strong opinions about Dear Evan Hansen that should not go on an album cover. Anyway, I nearly cut it for being too much and too blatant, but if that’s the issue I was running into, I figured it would have to connect with somebody, and would have to stay. Finally, ‘Tightroper’ is my baby; I think it’s one of my best. I wrote it on this piece of crap coconut kalimba that I had to retune into something workable and only had seven notes, so the entire song was based on “What can I actually DO with this?” I buried the kalimba under a different kalimba a bit, but it’s on the track because there’s no way I’m cutting it. Hell to record to a click, though. I’m super proud of the wind writing on this one, too; I wanted something that would give me the same emotions as the wind parts in ‘Parking Garage’ by Tommy Bravos (incredible song, PLEASE listen to it), and like. It’s not the same but it’s pretty good! I originally wanted it to fade out and go forever but I accidentally muted my strings and made them drop out in the beat and I liked it too much, so it ends like a normal piece of music. Thanks for reading all this, by the way. The first couple versions of this were much shorter because that was all I felt was relevant, and then I was like “Maybe I just write out all the lyrics as a text wall?” But I wanted it to be somewhat readable and also, like. Meaningful? I hope you like the music.

Sincerely, Elijah Harper