My plan for May is quite simple: release two singles. In this article, I will go over my song "So Wide Awake" and talk about what I like and what needs changing. This article also has clues to my other single, so try guessing what it could be!

This song was my favourite to write and perform, and it captured the essence of my hundred-day challenge: keep writing, and writing, and you might just hit gold. If you look at the songs before and after, you'll see songs like "I Have a Cat" and "I'm Not Ready", which aren't great. Generally, my songwriting was all over the place at that time, and I wasn't feeling that great. My songwriting did seem to suffer, but this song was me trying to tell myself that it's alright. However, this one is a gem.

When I initially thought of the song, I believed the lyrics were profound yet meaningless, and my short-form video discusses that. In hindsight, I was wrong. Yes, they are a bit cheesy, and I've never thought of myself as a great lyricist, but whenever I feel down, I find myself thinking of this song and the lyrics, "it's the little things in life that won't let you go". It's already my go-to set closer when performing live, as it's a song that reflects where I am.

I think it contrasts well with my other single, which is more fun. While this is introspective, based on what (admittedly little) feedback I've received, people have told me that they feel similarly: that it's a song that inspires hope.

It also includes the word "May", and talks about what I'll be when I hit May, which provides a nice coda to this chapter of my life.

The chord progression in the verse is simply a movement from I to IV in D major – I use this quite often in my songwriting. However, the added 7th as a transition chord makes this sound more sophisticated than previous works that utilise a similar progression. The chorus's chord progression also makes use of cadences to build tension and then resolve: something I actively tried to do in this song after watching the Robbie Williams biopic Better Man, where there is a scene with esteemed songwriter Guy Chambers about the technique of extending the chorus to build tension and resolution.

I love the build-up in intensity throughout the song, with the addition of instruments one by one as I enter different sections. For me, it reminds me a bit of "Don't Stop Believing" by Journey, though that builds up much faster. The title of the song is an homage to the Audioslave track "Wide Awake".

I also think the song sounds great acoustically, and it doesn't matter how I play it. I've performed the song live twice, in two different keys, and I enjoyed it both times. This must be because the song has a solid melody and solid harmony backing it up.

Attached is a screenshot of what needs changing (in red):

The song is too slow; it is six and a half minutes, so I have to increase the tempo by at least 10 bpm. This inevitably means I will have to re-record all of the audio tracks. I could use Flex time to negate this. However, The guitars are a bit out of tune, and I need to anyways change some lyrics, so there's no point.

but the bottom four tracks are MIDI – so why do I need to re-record them? Simple: all of it was automated based on a chord progression I plugged in, and I have access to both a piano and bass, so I have no reason to use MIDI for those instruments. For drums, it's alright, but it's not nuanced; again, it's just thrown together by Logic Drummer. That is why all the tracks are red. But that shouldn't be surprising.

Though I love my vocal performance, some of the lyrics don't make sense. For instance, the line in the title of this blog post, "What I'll be in May to take me out of this pain", is a question I am asked, and should really be "What will I be in May to take me out of this pain?". The lyrics in verse two will also be changed. I may consider changing keys, but as I said above, this song will most likely sound good in any key, and I like the key of D.

The most important thing, though, in my opinion, is the overly fattened structure. I don't need two chord progression cycles as an intro, and I definitely don't need a guitar solo that is 50 seconds long. Moreover, I use the pre-chorus four times in the song, which makes sense as it is both the outro and the bridge, but I need to do something more melodically and harmonically interesting during the bridge, so I may write an entirely new bridge – stay tuned for that!

Production-wise, I will use reference tracks to mix and produce the song – which I neglected during the challenge due to time pressure. Therefore, I the vocals were too harsh, and too loud. I will take recommendations for my reference tracks, since I am not as experienced mixing when including a piano. However, it is important to note that I am still doing this in a home studio setup, so it will still have elements of that, which, in my opinion, adds to the charm of my music.

For both single releases, I will be working on B-sides. I am yet to decide how they will be released, but my current thinking is that they will be released when I post the music videos for the main track. I could also potentially release them on the Tuesday before or after the main release.

The B-side for this song is "96 - Midnight Memories". I chose this after some deliberation because it's another song that speaks to me, and its message contrasts with "So Wide Awake", though themes of being up and having racing thoughts are heavily present. In some ways, this song is how I really feel, and "So Wide Awake" is what I need to tell myself to help me out of it, or to cope with it.

I also think there's a lot of work to do with this song – most notably changing the key to suit my vocal range, and removing that weird octave double. I think this will enhance the song greatly, as I believe that, like "So Wide Awake", the melody and harmony in this song speak for themselves.

I spent the weekend working on making my website nicer: deshsaxena.com

Please check out the 100 songs gallery page, and let me know what else I should add.

Over the next few weeks, I will be documenting my progress on releasing these songs, via this newsletter and short-form videos.

I am also working with @ghostlinkz for the artwork as well as guidance with how to release on web3, and he has been lovely, special thank you to him!