Anna Coddington on her new album Luck/Time and why certain pop music trends are just not for her.
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This is part of a regular series called Verse Chorus Verse which sees local artists break down the stories behind their music. For more, click here.
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Bird In Hand
This song was the first step toward this album back in 2013. I was keen to try a new direction and asked SJD to produce a couple of tracks for me. My demo of it had a crack up 808 beat and very different guitar and bass parts. Sean took my ProTools session, cut up the guitar and put a big delay on it, reworked the drums and bass and really changed it up heaps. The biggest thing for me was that he stripped the front of the song right out and had my vocal so prominent which at first I didn’t like – I just wasn’t confident enough and had always intended to re-do the vocal “properly”. But he said “no this is great it sounds good like this” and eventually I grew to love it that way.
Release Me
Through 2012-2014, I was listening to a lot of yacht rock tunes and that influence comes through a bit in this song. The drums and bass are really key. My reference to Chris O’Connor for the drums was Toto’s Georgy Peorgy and the bass line I wanted to be very hooky and just have that mean feel. Lyric wise it hones in on one emotion and just really “goes there”. It’s not really autobiographical, it just explores that thing we can all do of feeling something like suspicion/insecurity without really having solid grounds for doing so but just letting your mind go down the wormhole anyway.
Apples
This was the last tune I penned for the record and again really leans on a nice rhythm section. It started with the bass line, which I played over a drum sample (bass and drums were re-played with much excellence by Mike Hall and Chris, respectively). Everything else came quite easily from there. The lyrics started with the idea of someone being “in the wind” which is a phrase I heard on the show Homeland and liked, then it turned into pursuing that person and the idea that being together is inevitable – as birds are in the sky, salt is in your tears etc. IT JUST HAS TO BE. Lol. There’s the stalker vibe of watching that person eating apples and wondering if, as they cut it up, they’re thinking about you. I quite like the intensity of stalker songs.
Falling Fast
Again this started with the bass line and a crappy beat that I mocked up on Pro Tools, as well as the stacked harmonies through the song. I wasn’t sure where it would go in the studio but everyone came to the table with the goods and Jeremy Toy really nailed the guitar parts. I think this song is about feeling like you’ve been falling for various things – caring what people think of you, being affected by bad relationships, even good relationships – and feeling a little out of control and reaching a point where you feel like actually you deserve to have someone fall for you for once.
Lantern
This song has a strange influence from The Very Lonely Firefly – a book I was reading to my two year old son at the time. It’s a children’s book but it has this melancholy and danger about it that made it very intriguing to me. Lantern also explores the issue of identity and wondering if people can still see that you are a glorious lantern even though you’re only ever out in the daytime doing your domestic drudgery mum routine.
Luck/Time
Sometimes something big happens, like accidentally having a baby for example, that just really flips your life on its ass and you just have to ride the waves of luck and time and fortune and strife etc. But go with it because it may somehow land you in the best place you’ve ever been in.
Make You Mine
This is the other song SJD produced with Bird In Hand. They’re a good couplet because Bird In Hand is about letting go of someone and this is about not wanting to let someone go. Clearly they’re about different people. This one didn’t change too much from the demo but Sean really helped trim the fat structure wise and added those lush strings. Noice.
Till The Leaves Fall Down
I spent more time writing this song than any other song I’ve ever written. It’s a love song, obvs. I wanted it to feel positive and happy which is not my usual songwriting style. I think that’s why it took so long to get right. I also wanted it to be straight up the guts production wise – it’s a more traditional song and I asked my band for a Motown kinda vibe and they totally got it.
The Runner
This was another single I released in 2013, produced this time by Jeremy Toy. I almost didn’t put it on the album because I wasn’t sure it fit but I got talked round and I’m glad. I wrote this song when I was literally trying to run my way out of a bad mental/emotional spot. I was running about 30-40km a week and listening to a lot of up-tempo and probably emotional music. The lyrics for this song came to me on a run and I typed them into the notes app on my phone. I played everything on this song except the bass. Jere did a great job on this tune.
Too Far Gone
This song actually started as the soundtrack for a 48 hour film festival entry. It was for a fight scene and I tried to give it a Nouvelle Vague covering Dead Kennedy’s vibe for that, then pegged back the drama a bit for the record. It’s just about not giving a shit and going crazy.
Without A Fight
Back in 2013 I did a songwriting exercise of writing 30 songs in 30 days and this song came from that. I got bored of writing on guitar quickly, so one day decided to start a song by recording and cutting up weird mouth noises. I put a kick drum under those and that was the base. I had just found out I was pregnant with my son Arlo and was a bit freaked out so this is me processing that info. The last verse I wrote when he was about nine months old. It’s a pretty heavy song, I guess.
Run With You
A square peg in a round hole as far as the album goes, but a little nod back to where I started musically. I actually wrote this for a friend’s wedding! It’s a trad love song and, to be honest, I’m a sucker for those. I feel like “acoustic singer songwriter” is a label I really cringed at for so much of my career and that it’s something that’s pretty uncool right now, but my whole thing for this album was putting the feelings on the table and keeping the focus on the songs. I’m very aware that current trends really want female pop artists to sing over “beats” and synths and stuff (and I would probably get lots more radio play that way) but it’s not for me, so this song is also a little “whatevs” to that.
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