The first song, I'm Not The One To Blame, was actually written during the first month of production of Just a Picture. Just a Picture was an album that I had spent months panning out in both writing and production. At the time, it seemed very unnecessary to randomly add a 6+ minute song to the album in the middle of production. Not only that, but the song just felt different in a way because I wrote it in a different mindset. Nevertheless, I recorded a demo of the song for my audio engineering class in March and I was really proud of how it turned out.
It was the starting point of the idea I had for a new album despite not even being finished with the first one. Before planning it out, I was determined to finish my work on Just a Picture, including focusing on the release show and promotion. It wasn't until July of 2018 that I really started sitting down and planning out this new record. I wanted it to not only sound different but I also wanted it to have a different meaning. I've played around with concept album ideas in the past but after writing I'm Not The One To Blame, the meaning of the song gave me the initial idea for the meaning of the album (or at least a starting point).
After that, I refocused my attention on writing music before lyrics; which is how I write music to begin with. Early that summer, I wrote the music for No Words To Say, Moon Girl, and Villa Coapa. Both Moon Girl, and Villa Coapa I felt were songs that needed to be enjoyed musically rather than lyrically. Therefore, I decided to leave them as instrumentals. However, even though I felt that No Words To Say needed a standard Verse-Chorus-Verse-Chorus structure, I felt like it needed more. I added the bridge and ending after playing around with the chord progression on piano. I wrote the lyrics for No Words To Say slightly before I wrote Don't Tell Me.
My vision for Don't Tell Me was a completely 70's sounding song in both production and songwriting. My inspiration and influence for this track and album was Foxygen's Hang (2017). With this song, I decided to shift this entire record into a more 70's sounding vibe, differentiating it from Just a Picture which was more of a Jazz Rock/various genre record.
The rest of the songs were written in my fall semester of 2018. At this point, the narrative was starting to form. I wrote the lyrics for No Words To Say around this time and decided to expand on its meaning and apply it to the rest of the album. The original working title of the album was "Indolence," but after deciding to expand the meaning of No Words To Say, I changed it to "When Night Turns To Day" taken from one of the last lines of the chorus of No Words To Say. I wanted the album to be heard as a story. Therefore, No Words To Say works as a prologue following I'm Not The One To Blame, which I found to be a strong beginning to the story.
The next songs that were written were It's You and You're Still Lonely also as an attempt to expand the narrative in that direction. The music for both of those songs were actually old riffs of mine that I revisited to write those songs. I actually had trouble writing the last track because I wasn't sure how the narrative should end until I talked to my friend Alex Martini about it. Alex suggested I end it on a question mark instead of a period or exclamation point. This took me back to the idea of a third person point of view like No Words To Say. The music and lyrics for the last song, What Will You Do?, were written in the same sitting. 1am, on a Tuesday night in November.
I intended the narrative to be abstract and up to interpretation by anyone. But overall, I picture two people that don't belong together at all. But are 100% attracted to each other.
I truly hope that you all enjoy it.
Diego Agoytia.