Episode 21 - 'Green, Red, & Gold'
Welcome back to 50 Bad Songs! This is the Season 3 premiere, episode 21, "Green, Red, and Gold". With Season 3, we are moving forward with a new format to the episodes. Instead of recording the full songwriting process and editing it down to be listenable, we will take a retrospective look at the details of how the music, lyrics, and production all came together. You will hear the song at the top of the episode and again at the end. In this episode, Tim writes a Christmas song that is not actually a Christmas song. Using a songwriting prompt from Sarah Spencer's Five-In-Five Challenge at SongFancy, this song came together from this list of ten words: Cedar, Approach, Minute, Turn, Waiting, Twilight, Clear, Wool, Hands, and Warm. To learn more about SongFancy and the Five-In-Five Challenge, go to
http://songfancy.com/5-in-5-songwriting-challenge/
Episode Transcript
You’re listening to 50 Bad Songs -- a behind-the-scenes look at the process of transforming ideas & experiences into music & lyrics, AKA Songwriting! Each episode, you will hear a new song and how it came into existence. My name is Tim Rosko and this is the Season 3 Premiere, Episode 21, “Green Red & Gold”.
[Theme Song plays]
So, as you may have noticed, it's been a bit of a hiatus since our last episode. And I did want to talk about that some just a little bit because we're going to be changing the format of the show again, I know, but I think it's going to be for the better and I want to talk about why.
So when we first started this adventure back in 2018, I was creating this podcast as like a means to hijack my brain into doing the thing that I wanted it to do. In this case it was writing more songs and getting better at music and production and songwriting. And so, I did this by giving myself arbitrary deadlines and creating an end goal onto which I could focus my efforts. So, I was making a podcast about writing songs and I spent a lot of time focused on the podcast of it all. In 2021, however, my brain is back to writing songs and creating music because I want to! So I don't really need to hijack my brain in quite the same way. Now I want to write songs and document it by means of a podcast, which is a slightly different reframe on the idea as a whole.
And truth be told I have written a lot of ‘bad songs’ that have not made their way onto the podcast yet because I either like didn't have a guest with me or I didn't have recording equipment handy or because, and this was most of it, I didn't have the time or energy to like make and edit a whole podcast episode and like set up all the recording equipment, all that. Basically, the amount of work that I have been doing to produce a podcast episode for each song that I write in the way that I've been doing it, up to this point, has been quickly not as efficient as I wanted it to be. It has outweighed the benefits of hijacking my brain in the way that I was.
But that being said, I'm still writing songs and I still believe that writing and completing songs is the path towards getting better at songwriting. I still want to document my process and growth and I would love for that documentation to be a form that is interesting to others–in this case, a podcast. And I mean, I've committed to 50 episodes of this podcast. I did it in the name and I did that on purpose and by golly, I will see that through to the end. Even if it's the death of me. However, I do want to reprioritize where my time and energy goes because if I'm too hung up on how long it takes to make a podcast episode that I lose my motivation for writing the songs, then what am I even doing? Why am I even making this show?
So, after giving it much thought and asking for the opinions of listeners via polls, the format moving forward will be less of a real time behind the scenes experience, and more of a retrospective discussion on the process behind a specific song. While of the early episodes in their meandering journey from nothing to something along the path of inspiration and discovery, I don't think it makes for as enthralling of a listening experience.
So, that being said, I got this information from asking patrons on the patreon and followers on our social media, what they wanted to hear more of what they wanted to hear me talk about, what they wanted me to focus on, what they had more interest in learning about. So that was very informative for me and gave me a lot of data to move forward and make this be something a little bit more palatable I suppose. But if you want to take part in polls like this in the future, you should definitely go check out our patreon and our social media and you'll see those as they come up. We'll have more on that later.
If you are new to this show, welcome, this is a great episode to start with as literally it's going to be a brand new listening experience and I hope that you enjoy it. As I mentioned, this podcast is a documentation of a long growth process over several years. And if you'd like to hear that growth from the beginning, I encourage you to take a look back at the start of season 1, I think you'll hear the growth. I think it'll be very obvious. You can also listen to just the songs if you don't want to listen to the episodes, all of them can be found on Band Camp at 50badsongs.bandcamp.com, or you can stream them on Spotify and Apple music.
If you are a long time listener and have enjoyed listening to 50 Bad Songs, please, consider supporting us on patreon at patreon.com/50badsongs. I've reconfigured the patreon benefit tiers some and I think we've got lots of fun bonus content for you and I think you'll enjoy it. And also you get to share your opinions on how to make this show better. Special shout out this month to our esteemed patrons in the Tenor Section tier: Susan, and Chris Rosko, Francesca Scalici, and Vicky Scott. Your support means the world to me.
So, without further ado, this is Episode 21, and here is a brand new song, “Green, Red, and Gold”.
[“Green, Red, and Gold” by Tim Rosko plays]
Lyrics:
That old familiar cedar tree
Is waiting there for me
As the twilight sky falls into the night
And reveals its starlit tapestry
The air is cold and my breath is short
But the chill helps clear my mind.
I breathe in the minute and try to stay in it
While keeping my footsteps in time.
And I’m not thinking about what you said
Or all the thoughts running ‘round in my head
I’m just walking and breathing instead
Surrounded by green and red and gold.
My hands look for warmth in the wool of my coat
And I tighten my scarf just a bit
I try to discern where I should turn
And which path is better lit
The light pulls me forward as I approach
The world that once was mine
The windows that pass are made of colored glass
And the bells sing out the time
And I’m not thinking about what you said
Or all the thoughts running ‘round in my head
I’m just walking and breathing instead
Surrounded by green and red and gold.
I pause for a moment to see
All the world as it is around me
The lights that shine and the bells that chime
Remind me of who I can be.
But I’m not thinking about what was said
Or all the thoughts running ‘round in my head
I’m just walking and breathing instead
Surrounded by green and red
and gold.
So, this song all started with a songwriting prompt. The reason I was reaching for a songwriting prompt was because I was kind of in a writer's block at this point. I wrote it in December of 2019 and, if you're up to date on your show history that was at the end of the year, the previous hiatus year, leading up to Season 2. I found this songwriting challenge called the Five in Five Songwriting Challenge. I found out about it through a friend of the show, Rochelle Riser and guest on this show, Episode 14 Lil Bug. You should go listen to that because it's a lovely little song and she's amazing. She often does these songwriting challenges by Sarah Spencer at Song Fancy. You should definitely go check out her stuff and her website. She’s got a lot of great resources there for songwriters, but you're basically it's like in five days, you're gonna write five songs and you're gonna do it fast and here are some prompts to help you along the way. But basically you have to complete a song every day. Which I've used in the past, I've never fully completed it. But I have used them in the past and they come up with some interesting songs that you would literally never think that you would write. Because, you know, you're using these prompts that are not from your day to day life. And so yeah, you get some really interesting stuff and this song, “Green, Red, and Gold” came out of that.
So the way that Sarah Spencer often structures these prompts, she has a bunch of different forms, but this one was one where it was a sort of like collection of words to use as inspiration and to incorporate into the lyrics, if you can. Obviously there's like no rules, you don't have to incorporate them if you don’t want to, but the challenge is like, try to use all of them. That's the prompt and then she also has a second thing with it. So we've got your prompt that's the basic inspiration, and then an ‘amplifier’ and for her the amplifier is like an extra little challenge. So if you use all of these words or whatever, then you can turn to the amplifier to try and challenge yourself even more. Sometimes I use the amplifier, sometimes I don't. In this case I did.
So the prompt was this collection of words: Cedar, Approach, Minute, Turn, Waiting, Twilight, Clear, Wool, Hands, and Warm. And the amplifier was, “Use a new tuning that you've never written in.” So in looking at this list of words, it gave me a pretty clear idea, pretty quickly.
So one of the things that I've been working on in my own time as a songwriter is trying to write more image-based writing or using very visual language and creating a picture or scene with my lyrics. That's something that I don't do naturally because I just tend to have an idea about something that I want to write about and then start writing about that idea. Which is fine but it's not always grounded in reality. And some of the best songs in the world are really grounded in a scene or in a visual or a moment. And so I knew that I wanted to write a song that was more image-based and this set of words evokes a pretty clear image.
The other thing that I wanted to do which is similar to this is that I wanted to focus the writing on more of a small moment in time rather than a grand idea. Something that I’ve noticed with previous songs on this podcast in particular, is like, I will get caught up writing, you know, like a lot of big ideas, which is fine and sometimes really effective. But if you have more than one big idea in one song, it's kind of overwhelming, or it makes the big ideas feel less big because they are kind of clouded by all the other big ideas. And so I really wanted to challenge myself to keep this song in a specific moment in time and write the image of that moment, write the experience of that moment and use that to limit myself in a very grounding way.
[clip from original sketch plays]
So the very first word that caught my attention because it was the very first word in the list is ‘Cedar’. And while I grew up in Alabama, maybe there are cedar trees? There probably are, I don't know, we have Southern Pines. But the Cedar that comes to my mind is from my grandparents house in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. And I don't even know if they had a cedar tree in their yard either. What I remember specifically is the smell of cedar in their backyard. So there was probably a cedar tree, I think also they had a shed that was made of cedarwood, maybe? But I had this specific memory of the smell of cedar. And so that put me in Pennsylvania, but specifically with family and this very familial and comfortable headspace. And then I also saw the word ‘Wool’, and you know, wool plus cedar equals winter, probably, in my head. And so I did kind of sink into, Okay, I'm imagining this being a moment that's taking place in winter and potentially cold weather so you have wool on.
[clip from original sketch plays]
The word ‘Twilight’ also stood out to me. The actual experience of twilight is beautiful and I think the word is nice. And that reminded me of my parents' house and whenever I visit my parents house, they have a dog, Tater, who they take on walks twice a day–once the morning, once in the evening.
And so Twilight reminded me of this moment after dinner, where we're all taking Tater on the walk around the neighborhood. And it's a very short, it's not the biggest walk, but it's just a nice little walk. And this happens all year round, but it also happens around the holidays. And around the holidays it's like, a big thing because there's a million people. And so basically, with that plus wool, plus cedar, I was like, okay this is kind of a Christmas song, but I don't really want it to be a Christmas song. I want it to be one of those Christmas songs that’s kind of not a Christmas song. But It does take place at Christmas or it is set in the time of Christmastime. And so, you know, I have a lot of songs that I really like that fit that category. I actually made a playlist about it recently, which I'll link in one of the social medias probably. But you can also check my Tim Rosko Spotify page and you can find that if you're interested. But yeah, there's lots of songs that are kind of just songs about other things that happen to take place at Christmas. And so, I kind of knew that that was where I wanted to take this was like, you're at your family's for the holidays and you take a walk, basically.
[clip from original sketch plays]
So then I also saw this word ‘Clear’ and– what I love about these sorts of prompts, where there's lots of words, is that a lot of them can kind of be used in different ways. So, like, ‘Clear’ could have meant the color clear or like, ‘the sky was clear’ or whatever. But for me, I wanted it to mean, like, I ‘clear my head’. Because in my life and in my experience, I find that if I'm feeling overwhelmed, or if I'm feeling anxious, or if I'm feeling depressed, like anytime I'm feeling anything, truly, if I take a walk around the neighborhood or just take a 15 minute walk or longer, sometimes like a three hour hike. I find that it really helps me to clear my head and to like, ground myself in my body and get back to reality and be away from anxiety. And then also, ultimately, what walking around like that does, is it– I end up feeling gratitude. I feel grateful. I feel connected to my neighborhood. It always makes me like, fall in love with my neighborhood. I see little spots that I'm not used to seeing or I come across a tree that’s really interesting or whatever.
And so this was kind of using those words like, ‘cedar’ and ‘winter’ and ‘twilight’ and ‘clearing my head’ that kind of formed the basis of this song. I was like, all right, we're at family's house, or someone that feels like family, and you're there kind of around the holidays and something happened. Maybe an argument, maybe a fight, maybe someone said something that really upset you. And so you decided to step away and clear your head. And basically, just take a walk and like, deal with that.
So that was like, the initial prompting and basis that I had for this song. And as I started playing with this Idea of like, going for a walk, I kind of created this sort of piano thing that was, in music we call it an ostinato, but it's just a repeating pattern. And if you've listened to any of the other songs, you'll notice that that's just a thing that I like to do, period. But it specifically is helpful for when I'm writing because it's like, a thing that I can at least get an idea, something going, while I'm figuring out other parts. But in this case, I actually really liked the Ostinato because it kind of felt like walking. It kind of felt like steps plodding along. It was very, you know, consistent and regular and I liked that for this idea of, ‘I'm taking a walk to clear my head.’
Obviously, if it's Christmas, it's gonna be cold. And walking in the cold to me, is something that I actually really like, because growing up in the south, you know, so much of the year is hot and humid and like, it can literally feel like you're breathing steam in the summer. And whenever it's cold or crisp, it just – the air – It hits different. I don’t know how to describe it. It hits different. I feel like I can breathe better. I feel like my sinuses are clearer, and that's something that I especially noticed when I lived in Pennsylvania. I was like, oh my goodness, I love walking in winter because it just like, it feels so invigorating. And like, makes me feel alive, even if it's too cold. But I don’t know, something about breathing in cold air feels good and is calming to me. Mmm. I wanted to incorporate that into the lyrics as well.
[clip from original sketch plays]
The lyric, “keeping my footsteps in time” is a very specific memory for me. I don't know if anyone else does this. I swear, I'm not OCD, but when I'm walking, sometimes I will count my footsteps as I'm walking. And I don't mean that in, like, I have to reach a certain number. Sometimes, it's literally just a way to keep my brain engaged. Sometimes if I'm in a city or somewhere that's paved, I will count the steps in between each crack. But even if I'm not actively counting it, walking is so rhythmic in nature and I guess being a musician, I can feel that rhythm and like I will tap alone with my hands or I’ll tap a different rhythm against the, the constant like one, two, one, two of my feet. Oftentimes, especially in music school, that walking rhythm would act as a sort of base pad for me to practice things while I was walking like, a lyric or a melody or something. I would sing it in time to the rhythm of my footsteps. And so that's kind of the meaning behind this “keeping my footsteps in time”. I'm not in the military, never have been, but I don't know, It's so rhythmic. It's hard not to be aware of the rhythm of steps and so, I guess I meant “in time”, more like a dance! Anyways, I don't know if anyone else has that experience. If you do, comment below.
[clip from original sketch plays]
So when I came to the chorus, I was like, all right, I'm creating this wintry scene, but like, why am I here? Why am I doing this walk? Why am I by myself? Basically. It's not hard to imagine the holidays can be a little tense. It's very easy to imagine someone says something upsetting, or you get into a fight, or you get into an argument. I just want to be clear that that – it's a very common experience to have a sort of upsetting moment at a family function, but that I'm not basing this on anything specific. I came onto this idea of like, ‘I'm just walking and breathing’, and then, like, I'm not thinking about what just happened and I'm not thinking about anything because right now, I'm trying to just breathe. So basically, I came up with this line that was like, “I'm not thinking about what was said or any of the thoughts that are in my head. I'm just walking and I'm breathing instead.” And so since I knew this is going to be around Christmas, I had this rhyme set up and I was like, oh well, I know we usually say ‘red and green’ but what if I said ‘green and red’? I mean, it doesn't change the colors. It just is a little bit slightly different than what you are expecting. But then I was like, okay, I have a couple songs that I used as reference, but you know, there are lots of songs that will set up this rhyme, and give you the rhyme, and then take a little bit away from the rhyme.
[clip from original sketch plays]
And that's what I wanted to do, I wanted to fulfill the rhyme. We had ‘green and red’, but then also gold. And I know that gold isn’t a traditional Christmas color, but if you look around, lots of decorations around Christmastime are gold. I was like, okay, we're gonna do ‘green and red’ and we're gonna land on it, but then we're gonna keep going with ‘gold’ and kind of repeat this walking idea that I had. Because I didn't want it to feel final because it wasn't final, you know. It's like, I'm still walking. I'm still breathing. This thing is still happening. This moment is still happening. So instead of landing on red, I'm gonna move one more step and then have the chords just carry on underneath of me. So, similarly, I have this sort of bass line that that is rising with this repeating ostinato over top and that became this sort of walking theme.
And so, when I came to the line, ‘I'm just walking and breathing’ in the chorus, I was like, what if I brought it back to those chords? So we go to a different place for, ‘I'm not thinking about what was said or all the thoughts running through my head.’ And then we come back to, ‘I'm just walking and breathing’ and have this sort of, Boop! Back to reality. and then, you know, slightly go away, ‘surrounded by green and red and gold’ and then bring us back to the walking.
I felt like it was kind of weird to do that. Like this chorus didn't feel like a chorus for a long time. I wrote it and I was like, ‘I like it, but also it doesn't like, it's not the kind of chorus you're like, rocking out to and like, yeah I'm gonna sing along! but does it need to be? I don't know. I don't think so. I think it can just be what it is and be expressive and tell a story.
[clip from original sketch plays]
So then the second half of this second verse: Now, I kind of do, I will take more walks around my neighborhood, where I don't really have a plan of where I'm going. And so there's this idea of like, okay, I'm looking at what's ahead. I'm trying to figure out which street I'm going to take to get me back home, but I haven't decided yet. So, let me look. If it's Twilight, I'm trying to see, okay, is there a path that's better lit? But also, that line acts as a sort of– it's sort of a double entendre for the literal walk that I'm describing. If you've had this argument or you're trying to deal with a situation that's been frustrating, then like part of this walk is, You’re figuring out what is your next turn? What are you gonna do? What's the next thing? How are you gonna approach this problem? I thought poetically the crossover of ‘looking for the right path that's better lit’ would work nicely with what we had already said in the chorus.
One of the things that I've learned from reading songwriting books and stuff is, like, once you've said a chorus, your next verse after the chorus should be informed by what the chorus has said. And also add more to your experience of the chorus, so that when you come back to the chorus, it has a deeper meaning. So I think that that's what I was trying to do here with this metaphor of the path and and the light.
Before I get to the next line, I had this picture – again, this is a reference to Pittsburgh. I used to live next to an abandoned church in the SouthSide of Pittsburgh. And it was always, I mean it was literally right next to where I would go into my apartment, so it was always, the end of my walking path was coming across this abandoned church. Granted, ‘abandoned’ meaning like literally no lights on, no nothing. But it still was a pretty big building. It had stained glass windows and everything. So I wanted to use that image as the image of, like, you're rounding the corner of coming home and imagining this church that I used to pass by as a functioning church and being full of light and full of music and bells. And especially at Christmastime, if you pass any church, they're often very well lit up with Christmas lights. But then also, there's music and there's bells. And so I again wanted to lean into this sort of imagery of ‘it's Christmas’. And this is what would be around me if I was taking this walk.
[clip from original sketch plays]
So I wrote that line and I wrote “the bells singing out the time”. And to describe this line of, “the world that once was mine” isn't specifically about church. It's kind of this idea of, I've taken this walk. I'm rounding the corner to coming home, and I'm looking at this home, or whatever it is. Maybe it was like, if it's your family's house, it's the home that you used to live at, that you used to call your home. That maybe isn't your home anymore, but it still is, but it's not, you know, it's not your home in the same way. And so that became the inspiration for the line “as I approached the world that once was mine”. It doesn't inherently mean a loss, per se. I think it's more just – I mean, I guess it's a loss – but I think it's more about you’re in a different place than you were before at the end of this walk than you were at the beginning of this walk. So anyways that's kind of the inspiration behind this second verse.
[clip from original sketch plays]
When I got to the bridge: Pretty much, If you're using a bridge, the idea of a bridge is to provide a moment that is tonally different, lyrically, different – something to give you a break from what you've been doing in the song, verse-chorus-wise, so that you can then come back to the chorus or verse and it feels different and new because you have gone somewhere else. So I wanted to use that shift in tonality and, using different chords underneath, as a signal of a shift in thinking. So, the result of the, calming yourself and walking and breathing. And for me, what that meant, as I mentioned before, is like, it almost always ends in gratitude. Once I'm feeling grounded and back in my body and just aware of what's around me, I'm always brought back to gratitude of like, Wow! look at how beautiful these lights are! Look at how beautiful this sky is! Look at how beautiful this sound is. I'm so happy that I'm getting to experience it. I'm so happy that I'm here. Whether or not I'm actually happy, I'm experiencing this in this moment and I wanted to capture that with this bridge. This idea of, pausing and just looking and that kind of being a reminder, and being the thing that grounds you back into yourself.
[clip from original sketch plays]
So we come back to the chorus. And if you've listened to any of the songs in this podcast, you know that I love to do a bridge and then a real quiet chorus that brings you back to a bigger sound. But, in this moment I also really truly felt like that was the way to go. You were reminded of who you want to be, and now, instead of saying, ‘I'm not thinking about what was said’ as like a, ‘I'm pushing this away’, it's more of a peaceful acceptance place of, ‘I'm not thinking about it because I'm not upset anymore’. ‘I'm not thinking about that. I'm just breathing. I'm fine. And I'm in this moment of Christmas.’
And then for this final “Gold”, obviously I still wanted to keep that, ‘green and red and gold’, but up to this point it wasn't stopping. It was moving into the stepping sound or the stepping motif still. And so I was like, okay, how can I maintain this step sound, but bring it to a place of resolution? And so I came up with this sort of church-y sounding, descending chord progression. But I wanted to give it that sense of resolution. And we've been using this imagery of a church, and so I did this sort of walking and slowing and slowing until you get to just a very satisfying resolution to the I chord. Or at least, I think it's satisfying.
So all that being said, I wrote the song, like I mentioned, in 2019. So like, December 2019. A lot has changed in the world and in myself since then. And so I came back to it, in thinking about this new season, and I was like, okay, I have all these songs that I've written that I haven't put on the podcast. I want to, because I like them, and they're still in the spirit of writing as a practice. And so I came back to this song and honestly had to refigure out a lot of what I was playing. I recorded it, gratefully. I wrote down some of the chords, but what I played was not what I wrote down.
So I spent some time sitting with this chord progression and really just trying to get it back in my hands and in my body. And I don't know, I've been having this issue recently with my piano keyboard sound where I don't like the way it sounds. I think it's just, I've gotten so used to it and it's not a real piano, that every time I hear it, it just like, ugh, it's not a real piano. That's not what I want it to sound like. I don't want to use piano in this thing because I think this piano sound sounds cheesy or overdone or whatever. But I came across this piano virtual instrument from the Spitfire Labs that's called Soft Piano I believe. And when I opened it, I was like, ‘Oh, this is nice!’ Something about it – the way that the recordings, the samples of the piano just sounds – It sounds like you're playing on a real piano and playing quietly. And you can hear the hammer movement inside the piano. Oh, it's so nice. And once I opened that I was very inspired. I was like, ‘oh I want to use this for the track because it sounds so good!’
But I also really, I did want to try to explore more than just this repeating ostinato piano. Like I mentioned, that's kind of my go-to when I'm writing an idea because it's easy to get the sound in your ear and something to play along with without getting hung up on a kooky rhythm when you're just trying to figure out the song and write the lyrics. So, with this new piano sound, I was like, okay, I'm gonna play around with breaking up this chord progression, maybe arpeggiating some of it, using a different thing. And I did come up with this sort of arpeggiated thing that I really liked and still had a good sense of motion, and it was interesting, and I was still able to use – it sounded in the realm of what I wanted it to sound like. But in doing that, I was like, I don't know if this makes sense though for the whole thing because ultimately, I still like the plodding piano chord sound because like that's what my feet sound like when I'm walking. I figured that I could use both. I would separate them out by verses or, you know, figure out where it would work.
And as I was playing with these sort of plodding chords for the beginning, I was like, okay, I want to make an intro. And this intro is going to be the same chord progression. But instead of it being walking, what if I leaned into this Christmas-y vibe and did a really high, tinkly, twinkly piano to make it sound like bells or like sparkling lights or whatever. That's very much in the imagery of this song, so that could be fun. And I landed on something that I thought was really good. And it also encouraged me to pare back even more on the plodding. Where like, as you hear in the first verse, I could just not play. I could play the chords even less and it would still feel like walking and give a feeling of build and momentum through the song. And having that intro helped cinch that in my mind. It also vaguely sounds like church bells because it's this sort of moving fifths pattern. And that does come back later because we talk about ‘the bells singing out the time’ and so I was like, oh wait, now that I have this intro, I have this idea of bells and I can bring that back later that calls back to the beginning. But also now, it's contextualized with the lyric of church bells.
So, other than musical, I also did want to include some sound elements that weren't musical. So like, a little more sound design or a little more sound effects things. And so I was like, okay, It's winter, I'm walking. The first thing that comes to mind is wind or some kind of breeze because in my romanticized vision of this moment, that's what I want to be happening – is like a cool breeze and it blows across and you hear the leaves or whatever. So I was looking for some wind sounds on Splice and I found one that was a riser. A riser is a sound that producers use that kind of, sweeps up and goes like, [Tim makes a woosh sound] And they use it as a way of intensifying or highlighting a moment or whatever. So I found this wind riser thing [wind riser plays] and I was like, okay that's kind of cool. And what if I actually use that to set me up in the second verse to give me a different feeling in the first verse. And then I could switch in the arpeggiated piano for that second verse. And then we have this sort of riser rising – dink – and then it's different! Which is cool! And that draws attention to the verse and makes it feel like progress from the chorus to a new verse that doesn't feel like it's exactly repetition of earlier. But the riser also made me feel like, okay, what if I made a beat? Which is a very – if you’ve listen to this podcast, the beats are something that I don't instinctively come to always. It's often the last thing that I think of and I try to force it onto what I was writing. Which isn't – I want to do differently because I know so much can – If you create a beat separately, you can come up with very interesting and different things than what you would come up with, what I would come up with normally.
And so I was like, okay, I'm gonna try to make a beat. It doesn't have to be much because the song isn't – again, it's not like a party song – it's a quiet reflective song about thinking about your feelings during a family function. But, a beat could help bring this sort of, again, rhythm forward and the walking and the – and making it feel like you're having some kind of progress. So, I found some samples that were some muted sort of kicks and snares that I think are nice.
After I did that, I was like, all right, the other sounds that I want to use that aren't necessarily musical are breath. Because obviously, this whole thing is centered around breath being part of, like, I'm breathing to ground myself, I’m breathing to calm myself. And so I was like, okay, I want to record myself doing a deep breath.
[deep breath plays]
And I can use that at the beginning as a sort of setup for the song. But then as I was doing that, I was like, oh what if, hear me out, what if I could use the breath as a percussive element with the kick and the snare drum? And that gave me this idea of like, okay, I just record myself breathing a little bit faster and kind of cut it off so that it sounds more like a ‘sample’, intentionally. And I think that makes for a really interesting percussion thing of like, we've got this, inhale-exhale that's happening that's NOT what I'm actually doing in the song, but is implying breath. Anyways, I thought that was really interesting and added more to this feeling of progression as a song goes on.
And that's kind of pretty much everything that I did with the production. I kept wondering if I needed to add more, especially in the first verse because it felt so empty and spacious. And that's usually not how sounds want to be. So, I toyed a lot with adding harmonies or adding different sort of production tricks to add some interest or take me in different directions, but I didn't like any of them. And also, I kind of felt like it didn't need any of them. You know, this song was about this small moment, this small experience. And so I was like, well, why don't we just keep it small? I think ultimately, I like that decision still. It did make me think like, okay, I'm gonna add the wind sound to the entire first verse [so] that it fills in some of the gaps. But ultimately I was like, yeah, I don't think I need to add harmonies or whatever. It's just the voice and it's this very simple quiet piano. There's a little bit of bass, but it's nothing crazy. It's just kind of there to add some depth. And that's what the production needs to be. It doesn't need to be more than that.
And that's also a mentality that I have in general when writing. And that's because when I first started writing, in school when I was doing composition, I would just truly write– I would throw everything in all at once. And it took me several years to be like, okay great, you got all those ideas out, but space this out some. You don't have to use all of your ideas in a minute and a half. You can develop them. You can still use this idea, but how do you get there? How do you leave there? So it's been something that I've been working on over, I mean, the past several years of my life. Simplicity in writing and paring it back. Being more intentional with where there's more and where there's less, because that's an important part of music – the contrast between more and less. And in this song, I wanted to be less overall and simple overall. And if it can be effective and get the idea across and tell the story while being simple, why does it need to be more complex, you know?
[piano interlude from “Green, Red, and Gold”]
I feel like I learned a lot of lessons while writing this song and while producing this song. The biggest lesson for sure is like, change the sounds that you start with because it can invigorate you and it can inspire you to go in new directions. And it made a huge difference in my motivation to work on this song and truly, I don't think I would have come to the piano parts that I did without this piano instrument that I found. And also, by the way, the Spitfire Labs are free. So that was also a huge part of it. Definitely go check it out if you're a musician and you want a nice piano sound.
Something that was really important, was listening to references, which everyone always says to do and sometimes I do it. Sometimes I don't because I don't want to be influenced by, you know, these other other artists and I don't want to imitate them unintentionally. But there's also a lot to be learned. And I listened to, you know, Sara Bareilles who is a very big songwriter who uses piano – heavily features piano. And recently I've also been listening to JP Saxe, who's a songwriter whose songs are piano-focused. And I think that is important because it did help me think more intentionally about how I was using the piano. So that's also been a good lesson.
Another lesson was that writing a small song can make it feel so much more personal. I think I've been struggling with that in my songwriting and in previous songs in this podcast where, because I'm being not specific, you don't feel the urge to connect with the song. Yeah, the idea is interesting or it's about a big topic but it's not like SO specific. So I'm not connecting with it as a performer and then the listeners are not connecting with it. This also came up recently in a co-write where I was working with my friend Lisa. And she kind of called me out on some of it and was like, I want you to write a lyric that is you saying, “I feel this. you did this.” I want you to say it that directly. Make “I” statements instead of a second-person you or a royal we, which I have a habit of doing. I forgot to mention this, that is actually a big change that came about when I was producing the track versus when I wrote it. I was looking at this line of, “I'm not thinking about what was said” and I was like, I think this is what Lisa is talking about. So I'm gonna change it to “I'm not thinking about what You said or all the thoughts running around my head” My personality is like, “oh, but I'm not accusing anyone, I don't want to – whatever –” But as a song, yeah, that’s basically what it's coming down to. I'm not thinking about what you said, specifically. Yeah, I could say more generally “what was said” and that broadens it to maybe it was a group argument or maybe it was the whole family or whatever. But it's much less specific. And when you can write specifically, or write – keep it small and focused – it just feels so much more impactful. And I hope that you feel the same way!
And then the biggest thing in production that I learned, and I feel like is a point of growth, was, I kind of figured out how to sing a song like this and edit the vocals to sound in a way that I've never recorded my vocals to sound that way, and I've never edited them to be so present and forward. And I really liked the way it sounds in this. I also cut out all of my breaths because I was using breath as a, you know, percussive element and an intentional part of the song. So, I was like, I'm gonna remove all the breaths in between lyrics, so that it's lyrics, but then the breaths are elsewhere and I think that made a huge difference. Again, this was also emboldened by listening to references and one of the specific things that I listened to was JP Saxe again. I'm loving his music. But I listened to his voice and I wanted to make my voice, or the production on my voice sound similar to the production on his voice. Obviously our voices don't sound alike, but I did want to use that as inspiration for how to take my – take it to the next level. And I feel like I did in the song and that felt very growth-oriented in a way that I haven't before.
So here's the song again in full: this is “Green, Red, & Gold” by Tim Rosko. Thank you for listening.
[“Green, Red, and Gold” by Tim Rosko plays]
50 Bad Songs is created, recorded, and edited by Tim Rosko with visual design by Gabriel Starner and music by Tim Rosko. Follow us on social media at 50BadSongs on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok. You can listen to this song and all previous songs on bandcamp at 50badsongs.bandcamp.com or by streaming them on Spotify and Apple Music.
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My name is Tim Rosko and thank you so much for listening today.
