Manticess: After I Have Gone

Check out the third round of Masters of Song Fu #5 over at QuickStopEntertainment.com! Manticess contributed a song called “After I Have Gone”. Other artists made songs with different titles. Go check it all out! Also: vote! Vote! Vote! Vote! Vote! (Read: you have five votes – use them wisely!)

On Wednesday evening I came up with the little melody that opens “After I Have Gone”. I wrote some lyrics on Thursday, but accidently left the paper with them at work. So when it came to record a demo for Susanne, I had to improvise a bit, because I couldn’t remember all the words. (More than 90% turned out to be ‘correct’, though.) She recorded vocals and some flutes on Friday in a bit of a hurry, because she was going to be away over the weekend. Unfortunately, I couldn’t use the flutes as they were the wrong key. They would have added quite some Christmas sparkle! Something like a string quartet had been on our mind for some time now. So I used the opportunity to arrange two violins, one viola, one cello, plus a flute. Digital copies of the original instruments had to suffice. A big thank you goes out to fellow song fuer Caleb Hines, who used his arsenal of virtual instruments and provided us with a wonderful orchestra track. I spent several hours mixing the five tracks (voice, guitar, stereo strings, keyboard bells), which is somewhat ridiculous. Still, I really enjoyed what I heard and I’m extremely content with the result.

The lyrics of the song were inspired by Richard Shindell‘s beautiful ballad “Before You Go”, which is basically God’s last words to his son before sending him to earth. I took up the narrative from Jesus’ point of view, both after he left the Heavens and after he fulfilled his mission. I’m still unhappy with the line “my memory has gone”. I had wanted to describe the way becoming human transforms his memories from heaven. But I also wanted everything to rhyme, so sacrifices were made. Also, the time constraint is at times a blessing, because it teaches you to not get lost in details.

In other news, Manticess will be playing a little gig with JODA this Friday at the university of Konstanz, IBZ II (K5 beneath the Mensa) around 19.30! Be there! We’ll be giving away free cds!