Behind the album...

The planning for this album began in October 2022, working around a central idea of how those three little words, “I love you,” are able to work themselves through, and entwine themselves into, almost every aspect of life, whether that be through learning to love yourself, falling in love, heartbreak, or loss. Hence the album title “Three Scarlet Words.”

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The first songs for the album were selected from some of those I had written during my Masters in Songwriting course and which fitted the concept of the album. The challenge was then to write the songs that ‘filled in the gaps,’ enabling the story to take on a journey through different aspects of love and its impact upon an individual. The songs are semi-autobiographical, being influenced by some of my experiences through life and those of others around me.

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The album starts with the idea of the protagonist needing to love herself before she can love anybody else. The subsequent songs tackle the transience of love and the ways in which various relationships come to an end, while the closing songs see the protagonist finding the love she’s always dreamed of, together with a newfound belief in herself.

 

The following section provides a brief overview of the songs and their relation to the journey:

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When Will I Be Me? The creation of this song started with the piano’s relentless rhythmic motif before evolving into a specific chord progression. This rhythm, together with the pace of the song, help to relate the multitude of feelings going on in the protagonist’s mind, coupled with the disorientation associated with trying to find out who she really is. This is also reflected in the lyrics which reveal that, rather than hiding behind a facade, all she wants is to feel comfortable with her real self. A combination of the synth voices in the pre-chorus, and the synth effects on the live vocals in the bridge, provide a robotic feel which emulate contributes to the protagonist’s feeling of not really knowing who she is. 

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Just Passing Through Written on the guitar, this song uses another AB song structure and establishes the idea of love being temporary; one minute we believe we have found love but it can disappear in a moment, thereby setting the scene for the next four songs which show how we can ‘pass through’ love in different ways. Set at a lower tempo than ‘When Will I Be Me?’ but still moderately paced, the song is based upon a 4/4 beat and focuses on an underlying intervallic acoustic guitar pattern which retains the same top note, thereby applying an element of consistency to the song. In contrast, the bass note of the guitar moves a tone at a time, implying an element of change that is recycled every four bars. The consistent interval jumps between the guitar notes, therefore, provide the constant up-and-down movement associated with jumping on a trampoline. Before I had even finished writing this song I could hear an Irish flavour behind it through the use of the bodhran and banjo. The ‘sticks’ that start the song were also something I envisaged working well with the song and is an idea inspired by Kate Bush’s song, ‘Suspended In Gaffa.’ The subtle drone enabled me to bring an element of uncertainty into the song, while the tremolo and pizzicato strings provided another layer of ‘the uncanny.’ Again, a vocal synth effect added to the live vocals in the bridge provides a slight ‘warp’ to the upbeat but darkly-edged soundscape which is accompanied by secondary vocals singing the song title. Following this, the song builds into a complex and intricate vocal arrangement which also includes repetition of the word “jump,” all of which creates an element of chaos similar to that of several people jumping on a trampoline.

So Many Times This song was originally written on guitar and starts with a motif on the acoustic guitar, accompanied by a haunting ‘knocking’ MIDI sound, panned from side to side. Despite being practically the same tempo as the previous song, the 3/4 time and balladic nature of the song gives it a completely different feel in terms of tempo and mood. The song tells the story of a couple whose relationship is breaking down. Each of them is so tired of arguing that they are resigned to living in a state where they barely talk to each other. This is exhausting for both of them and there is only so long they can be trapped in this state before a resolution -- of any kind -- can be found. I was keen to emphasise the anguish and pain of this storyline through the use of vocal expression and dramatic string sounds. Additionally, a gated reverb on the snare is used to provide a more aggressive sound to fit with the theme of the song and to enhance the idea of the silence in this relationship being confrontational. Although based on an AB song structure, there are two bridge sections which both emphasise a different emotion; the first being exhaustion and the feeling of giving up (differentiated by the mood provided by the vocals and the drop in instrumentation), while the second emphasises anguish and frustration, (again provided mainly by the vocals but also accompanied by the relentless tom pattern). The second bridge builds back into the final chorus and finally drops the soundscape back down to the feeling of being “so tired” as the couple are just weary from pretending that nothing is wrong. Although more than 6 minutes long, the ambient, dramatic soundscapes are constantly changing via the intertwining nature of the synthetic and natural sounds, thereby enabling the listener to immerse themselves into the changing emotions of the breakdown, and distracting them from the true length of the song.

Fall Out of Love While returning to a standard AB structure and 4 /4 time, the tempo of this song is decreased significantly from the previous songs to indicate the melancholy and yearning being experienced by our protagonist. This is a song about how difficult it is to fall out of love with someone, even when you know that the relationship isn’t the right one. Originally born from a phrase I had thought of — “changing seas, turning tides” — this song is set on a beach and was written on the piano with the idea that the notes of the broken chords could wash over each other like the waves on the shore. The seascape was enhanced by a field recording of waves washing up on the shore at the beginning, and a synth emulating the distant sound of a foghorn from a lighthouse prior to the second verse. The lyrics of the verses are also littered with imagery about the beach and the sea to enhance the soundscape. The string arrangement is created to build towards the end of the song, creating tension before the song fades back to the crashing waves. The choruses incorporate vocal synths for ambience, while also providing an underlying rhythm and momentum later in the song. A variety of harmonies and vocal countermelodies are used throughout, with the song culminating in a wave of the words “fall out of love” (effected by tape delay) which finish the song by emulating echoes across the endless ocean.

My Beautiful Pain Here we see another drop in tempo, emphasising that our protagonist has hit an all-time low. Written on the piano, the chord sequence is designed to create a sense of darkness and anguish. The title intends to create a disturbing juxtaposition, while the lyrics describe the intense emotional pain that is experienced when someone whom you thought loved you, leaves you. Written in 4/4 time, the song retains an AB song structure, however, the pre-chorus is lengthened to really labour the shame and agony of being scorned. In terms of instrumentation, the song starts relatively simply with traditional piano, voice, and strings, then a drone is added to increase the tension. Multi-layered harmonies, (using chorus, tape delay, telephone EQ, and vocal synth effects) all come together to build the final section, providing the soundscape with an atmosphere filled with anguish and despair, while the sound of a heartbeat slowing down closes the track and gives it a sense of finality.

Another World This song started with a collection of synthetic instruments, melodies, and patterns that I had combined within Logic. These ‘motifs’ guided much of the progression and structure of the song which very much goes against the grain of any standard song structures. Having recently read some of Trevor Horn’s work (Warner, 2003) I decided that a non-standard song structure would help to capture the uncertain mood of this soundscape. The particularly dark and unnatural feel of these instruments and motifs made me think of Hades’ underworld and, following some research, I found the story of Orpheus — who could entrance anyone with his music — and the death of his love, Eurydice. When Eurydice died, Orpheus was so grief-stricken that he entered the underworld to ask Hades to see his wife. Hades was so moved by Orpheus’ music that he allowed Orpheus to take Eurydice back with him, on the one condition that Eurydice would have to walk behind Orpheus out of the underworld and Orpheus could not look back at her as they walked. The story says that nearing the exit to the underworld, Orpheus couldn’t hear Eurydice’s footsteps and turned to check, thus losing her forever. This story emphasises the anguish and despair of losing someone you love, and the lengths we would go to, to see our loved ones again. The song, initially, stood out as very synthetic in comparison to the other songs on my album, as it was also the only song to incorporate a beat loop instead of drums. As a result, I added a piano, followed by the acoustic guitar layers, to create a better balance between the natural and synthetic sounds, while still allowing the unnatural and dark atmosphere to feature as the main focus of this soundscape. Again, the backing vocals were multilayered and designed to enhance the atmosphere of being in the underworld, while the thunderclap and rain emphasise Orpheus’ despair of losing Eurydice again as she is drawn back into the underworld. This is followed by a spoken section which emulates a reflective moment from Orpheus. These lyrics are also reproduced in sung form using the same melody as the first vocal section of the song, suggesting that Orpheus is, essentially, back where he started — without his love.

Better For Me Here the mood of our protagonist’s journey is lifted by the upbeat tempo in 4/4, (although the introduction gives a feel of 3/4 followed by 5/4 until the acoustic guitar enters). The balance of synthetic and natural instruments shifts back towards the natural, removing us from the dark underworld, into a place filled with security and happiness. Having been through so many negative experiences and emotions as a consequence of love, our protagonist now finds herself coming out the other side and almost stumbling into the love she had always imagined, making her previous experiences a distant memory. Starting with a drum pattern in Logic and then written on guitar, this instrument takes a prominent harmonic position in the song where, previously, it had only been used for melodic motifs, thereby, distinguishing this song from the rest of the album. As per the rest of the album, the guitar is combined with a number of midi instruments but a particular lifting quality of this song is the brass section which doesn’t feature anywhere else in the album. The penultimate section of this AB song structure provides a reflective moment which is emphasised by the main vocal being sung an octave lower while also switching to predominantly midi instruments. However, this shift is rectified in the final chorus, returning to a more organic balance of instrumentation, and this final lift completes the breezy nature of this song. 

An optimistic toe-tapper, Better For Me is Christine Corau's second single release which carefully blends natural and synthetic instruments to shift between moments of reflection and rapture.

Dare to Believe Here the tempo drops back to a moderate pace in 4 /4 time and returns to the piano for the main instrument, thus restoring an element of balance to the album as a whole. Like the majority of the songs on this album, this song was written on the piano, however, I already had a rough set of lyrics for the first verse and chorus before I came up with the harmonic structure. The lyrics reflect upon the protagonist’s life and describe how, by finding the right person, she has learned to love life, pursue her dreams, and finally believe in herself. This reflective element is enhanced by a number of elements at different stages, including the reduced tempo (in comparison to the previous track), the use of only piano and vocal for the first verse, the laboured, legato strings in the chorus, the playground field recording in the bridge (intimating childhood memories), and finally the dreamy, layered harmonies in the outro. The backing vocals also provide counter melodies in keeping with many of the other songs on this album. The pizzicato strings in the bridge provide a welcome pause from the drama of the legato strings in the choruses as our protagonist ponders her childhood, while the lack of drums at the beginning and end of the song helps to emphasise the reflective elements of this song.