Ep. 52: “Life Support” (Song Exploder / Splice Contest)

Here’s a brand new song I recently submitted to a contest put on by the podcast Song Exploder and a website called Splice. Basically, Splice is a subscription site which contains a large library of samples you can use for your songs. For this contest, I was given a collection of 50 samples and tasked with creating a song using at least 4 of them. If my song is selected, I’ll win a one year subscription to Splice, a Song Exploder t-shirt, and have my song featured on both the Song Exploder and Splice websites.

In the spirit of Song Exploder and the Making Music podcast, I thought it would be fun to break down the song a bit and talk about how it was made. I ended using 13 samples for this song but I’ll just point out a few of them.

Most of the song revolves around this bassy synth line which I think sounds really cool. Reminds me a little of a Moog synth. The beat I choose was the wrong tempo so I had to speed it up to match the bassy synth. I also added other samples like a piano line, strings, ambient sounds and a buzzy synth.

After I started piecing together some of these basic elements, I came up with a melody and some lyrics. At first, I couldn’t decide what the song should be about. I went to website with a song idea generator, clicked the submit button, and got the response “Write a song about your physical condition.” This spurred the idea to write a song from the perspective of someone with cancer who is about to die and some of the feelings they might be going through, including trying to find hope in a dismal situation.

I’m please with how the whole thing turned. I’ll keep you posted about the contest and let you know if I won.

Lyrics:
Waiting in the lobby for the test results I keep breathing
Knowing that the prognosis isn’t looking good

Doctor says I only have a month to live
This might be the last you ever see of me

Hooking up my body up to life support I keep breathing
Wishing I could tackle this disease

My hair is falling out and my skin is pale I feel weaker
Having all the life sucked out of me

I’m still alive (Don’t write me off yet)

I’m still alive (Don’t write me off yet)

Free download of “Life Support” on Bandcamp

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *