Day 10: Only One Brother Will Know (with Robby Layton)

 

Day 10: Only One Brother Will Know (with Robby Layton)

Part of my song-a-day writing project for January 2024. Also Day 4 of this month’s The Fearless Songwriter challenge.

Lyrics:

Four months on the trail to California
You said we'd be back in six
At this rate, I don't think it'd be worth it
Even if we come back rich

Chin up, brother, we're gonna make a killin'
Down on the gold fields, good lord a-willin'
You can build a big house for your wife and your children
If the devil don't get in the way

I'll forgive you for stealing the love of my life
I'm not sure I'll ever be the same
A fortune will help to balance the scales
But I'll never relinquish my claim

I'm willing to stomach your ambitions
And suffer these awful conditions
Go through a little perdition
'Cause I know there'll be heaven some day

The fates looked down on two different brothers
How could they take one and not take the other?
Coyotes, bandits, a poison well
And sundry other portals to Hell
Whatever happened
Only one brother will know

You'd never believe me, but I did make a killing
I'll take good care of your wife and your children
From heaven you'll see the good life we're living
The good Lord provides for those
Who can help themselves

***

Details: Robby and I have both covered songs by each other, and Robby is both in my band and producing some songs of mine in the studio, but this is the first time we've ever written together. And believe me, the song we came up with was a surprise to both of us.

We started off with the Day 4 Fearless Songwriting prompt, which was "Tiles on the Roof" I liked the idea of rhyming roof with proof and suggested we build the song around theology; something like "For God, is there proof? Or is he just like tiles on a roof". I also proposed a random chord progression

Robby loves music theory, and he grabbed some charts from his upstairs study and showed me a Mixolydian mode, which he believed my progression fell under. It sounded kind of churchy, so we dabbled with the idea of doing something medieval, maybe with two voices doing counter-melodies. Robby was really excited about using B-diminished chord, which was the 2-chord in the progression, so that ended up being a distinguishing feature of the song.

I'm relatively illiterate musically, and Robby is a far better guitarist than I'll ever be, so I was happy to follow his lead. While he was working out the progression, I started developing a story about two brothers during the California Gold Rush. The we decided the song should be a murder ballad. It was fun coming up with the motivations and personalities for each brother.

Like I said, this is a song neither of us would've written on our own, but it was a blast to write it! It feels a little bit like a micro-stage musical. I had fun hamming it up in the video, too...