Day 14: Hidden Pain (with Joel Terrell)

 

Day 14: Hidden Pain (with Joel Terrell)

Part of my song-a-day writing project for January 2024

Lyrics:

She's acting out again
The tone of her voice says that I'm to blame
Rolling her eyes at everything I say
She doesn't know that she's in pain

He makes everything a joke
Thinks a wink and a smile will make everything okay
He's not an ass, maybe
He just doesn't know that he's in pain

Hidden pain, hidden pain
The dis-ease we all carry
Through the day-to-day
Conceal it, ignore it
So it stays unseen
Hidden pain, hidden pain

Blood pressure quick to rise
I blow up at every little thing
I don't mean to be a jerk
Maybe I'm just in pain

Hidden pain, hidden pain
The dis-ease we all carry
Through the day-to-day
Conceal it, ignore it
So it stays unseen
Hidden pain, hidden pain

Poppin' aspirin, flippin' channels
Down a couple drinks
Six scoops down the Rocky Road
So I don't have to think about

Hidden pain, hidden pain
The dis-ease we all carry
Through the day-to-day
Conceal it, ignore it
So it stays unseen
Hidden pain, hidden pain

***

Details: Joel came over we talked about how our weeks were going. At one point he mentioned that his 2-year old was crabby-- I think because of teeth growing in-- and that "she doesn't know that she's in pain". That kind of struck me-- the idea that your personality changes sometimes even though you may not know exactly why. So we decided to start writing about that.

Joel is a lyrics-first type of writer, so we worked out the lyrics first. I think I mentioned before that I usually write lyrics and music together, and I always get nervous about the lyrics not matching the music if you write the words first. But it really just means that the melody doesn't need to be so tight, which is fine.

I asked Joel what his favorite keys to work in were, and he suggested G or Em. I took a crack at whipping together a chord progression, but it was coming out too similar to what I wrote yesterday, which was in the same key. Joel came up with much different progression and rhythm that was really cool. We kind of worked out the chorus together. In retrospect, I think the chorus sounds vaguely like "Hotel California" but it may be different enough that it doesn't matter.

We got the basic song written in about 2 hours, then took about 30 minutes to practice and record the song, then Joel had to run off. It was a fun co-write!