Goodnight – Song and a Chat

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 31:39 — 21.7MB)

Episode #191: Goodnight (Song starts at 4:20)

Here’s another half an hour of music and gentle chat. This isn’t a left brained sort of dry presentation eg: “ and here we have the verse, you’ll note… blah blah”.

No, it’s more relaxed. I’m on stage – in my mind. Well, I’m sitting at my piano, in my a studio in Melbourne, Australia, and you are my audience and I’m here to entertain and inform you.

So I’m an entertainer. I enjoy relating events from my past that help paint the picture of where the song of the episode came to mind.

On that note, this week, I delivered a large seascape painting to the Bayside Art Show in Brighton, Melbourne.

As I sat in the car park and observed the scene, lots of memories came back to me.Back when I wrote ‘Goodnight’, I was a busy chap, as I am still now. I’d been part of another exhibition here… I ended up winning the People’s Choice award, as it turned out, in the morning, I painted a plein air seascape and framed it.

Then I painted a picture of the statue (a feminine figure in a pond just to my right), and I painted the church behind me. All 3 paintings sold in an auction on the day. I did a cartoon session with kids. I also did a gig & I played my songs in the garden. Big day, eh?

‘Goodnight’, the song, is about that moment where you finally rest your head on the pillow when you’ve had a big day.

It might have been an extremely busy, satisfying day… like the day of that exhibition (I went out like a light when I finally hit the hay that evening), or a completely different sort of day.

The main message that came across as the lyrics came through, was ‘Goodnight’, you know you’re loved’.

That very reassuring statement came through loud and clear. And I think it’s true. It’s just the way it is.

The words came first. When I compose this way, I do find it very easy to add the music afterwards.

Words bring pictures to mind, the pictures become a movie and then it becomes clear to me what sort of music is required.

With the limitations of my abilities, such as they are, I perform my version of what I’ve an hear in my mind as I play.

All I need is the start. Then a riff happens, then perhaps a section that builds. In this case, when that happened, I could hear the band arrangement clearly in my head, so I knew then what sort of animal I was dealing with.

A mellow dynamic dreamy ‘end of album’ sort of a song, which it ended up becoming: the final track on the album ‘The Man In Blue’. I loved wiring and recording this album. The version on this podcast episode is the recording from the album.

It was my first effort at recording a full band album with acoustic drums and everything, it was fun. It was so much fun I’m still recording today, I’d be in the studio 7 days a week if I could.

That’s partly what this podcast is about, I have 800 songs, so it’s nice to bring them out into the light online, sure some are on albums already (like ‘Goodnight’). But other aren’t and may never be.

And still others, because I’ve rediscovered and added bits to on an episode, They are now ready to record.

Anyway, on this episode…you’ll get to hear how the song came together. It’s fun playing the piano, singing and talking through each section as they happened,

If you like this episode there another 190 to listened to when you feel like it. I enjoy listening back these episodes and reviewing my work in the car. I end up just really relaxing and enjoying the 30minutes each time.

I hope you do too.

The lyrics for this song (and the paintings and more music) are on my blog www.petepascoe.Wordpress.com each week too.

The Man In Blue is streaming now on all the usual platforms, including my Bandcamp website www.petepascoe.bandcamp.com

You might like to check out my video for ‘At What Cost’, track 2 of the album on my YouTube channel Pete Pascoe Art and Music.

For now, it’s Goodnight from me. I hope you enjoy this episode.