THEA: When Suno recently introduced their new models, Chad started experimenting with styles to see what might be viable for us to use on our new material. I don’t quite recall how it happened, but he stumbled on this indie-sounding one using a female vocalist who sounds almost like a high school kid…so our discussion turned to the concerns of people much younger than we are. We kicked around topics (social media, etc.) and I think I’m the one who first mentioned how focused girls sometimes are on self-image and appearance, and how difficult that can be for the ones who are not as conventionally physically beautiful as others.

Chad has three daughters, so he’s not unfamiliar with girls experiencing pressure to look a certain way.

During our discussion, I asked him to generate this voice singing “I’m not the pretty girl/I’m not the beauty queen/you’ll never see my face/on a magazine” (he very slightly modified this to make it work better…and it does). The result sounded like the perfect pairing to me: this voice, this topic, these lyrics.

By the next day, Chad had the remaining 75% in place. We did our usual trimming,  fitting, and making improvements, and the very last thing we did was add the conclusion: “But I really like myself, so maybe that’s okay.” Because it needed that. Girls who feel this way typically develop other things that make them special, and if they like who they are in spite of not being as physically beautiful as someone else, that’s a win. And we wanted a win for this girl.

If you’re at all familiar with what we’ve been writing, you’ll recognize this is quite a departure for us. But what I like about that is a) it demonstrates that we have a fairly wide range and are capable of writing far outside what is typical for us, and b) it’s an important message, giving voice to young girls who struggle with this pressure—but concluding: “You still have so much value and you can still like yourself, even if you don’t think you can make yourself look like a model.”

And that’s a message girls have always deserved to hear.

CHAD: This song was inspired by a dream I had one night. A person showed up in my dream that I knew - an old friend I had lost many years ago. I couldn’t make out features or anything, but someone called them by name, or I wouldn’t have recognized her.

I remembered bits and pieces when I woke up, and had another realization - I hadn’t just lost someone that I cared about, but in the forty years since I’ve also lost the memory of her face, her voice, and the little details I thought that I’d always remember. I tried to remember, but everything had become softer over the years.

When Thea and I sat down with it, it needed a lot of work. There’s really no story in this song, but rather some realizations, and getting those into a cohesive structure that made sense was difficult. We had to change a lot, and remove thoughts that were repetitive, until we came to a final version that we both felt was strong enough.

I had originally called this “Erosion”, and had both “Softer” and “Erosion” in the song, and couldn’t decide which way to go. Thea and I both ended up agreeing that “Softer” was stronger - and, well, softer - than “Erosion”. I think that was definitely the right decision.

THEA: Yes, we made a lot of changes here, but not to the fundamental message Chad wanted to convey. We replaced some key words with better ones, added words to fill out the original phrases to make them land better, and removed a redundant verse…but before I even heard it the “softer” hook was in place, and there was no question in my mind what it really needed to be.

Chad is an excellent photographer (Instagram: @chad.fairbanks), so some of the imagery in the song reflects the language of photography, which I love; another thing I love about it is the recurring metaphor of fading memories as nature, for example: the smoothing of a stone from the motion of the sea, the fog diffusing our vision of details about someone we’re missing.

As is sometimes the case when we’re working with Suno, it takes more work than people probably imagine to get where we want to be—at least the way we use it. Once we determine where we want to end up, on a less-than-cooperative song it could take more than 100 “takes” to get there—typically, we are shifting and crafting lyrics and form and making musical decisions along the way (alternatively, sometimes it falls into place very quickly)—this particular song took between 100 and 200 takes to get it to sound the way we wanted…and we could have kept going, but we have learned when to stop.

This is such a unique topic, I think, and this is a nearly universal fear when people in our lives pass away: “I desperately want to hang on to what I have left of you, but I can feel my memories of you slowly slipping away.”

For me, this is my sister. I try to recall what it was like to be in a room with her…she was funny and generous and such a joy to be with, and I remember that she was—but I can’t see it in detail when I try. I only remember that she was. I can’t see her face clearly. I can’t hear her voice.

Maybe the lack of sharpness that develops over time is in part a natural response to pain, but it is a type of pain in itself. And so, we (primarily Chad) wrote “Softer” to give voice to that pain.

THEA: One evening Chad announced that he’d found an old receipt in his wallet, and thought he might try writing a song about it…because he figured “that’s what Donald Fagen might do in that situation”.

I’m sure I had a puzzled (then skeptical) look on my face, but…we went ahead and worked on it.

There’s not a lot more to say about this one, except to say I’m sort of hung up on everything making sense and lyrics laying in the pocket…so a little bit of the quirky poetry and form was sacrificed to the overall story once I started working with Chad on it. The changes ended up being pretty basic but there’s a charming little Fm7 transition to the bridge that is a nice moment if you like that slightly-out-of-place sound, which I do.

We both love Steely Dan. We’ve seen them at least five times and I actually have one of Walter Becker’s guitar pedals, and Chad has a bass pedal he owned…and though—at least for us—there can be no imitation, there is always inspiration, and that’s where the seed of this idea came from.

Anything to add, Chad?

CHAD: This was an exercise exactly as Thea described - if Donald Fagan found a receipt in his wallet from long ago, with the text barely readable, what would he write about? I don’t know what that answer is, but it eventually morphed into what this is - a song about a date at a hard to find bar called “The Merc” in SoHo, and the end of a relationship.

And for the record, they actually did play post-punk bands like Joy Division in the evenings on the house tapes, and not a jukebox. But, for the sake of the song we chose “jukebox” instead.

THEA: Because some of the work we do involves Suno, people may assume we aren’t making a lot of musical decisions (in truth, we make many), but one of the most important things we do is choose a messenger for our lyrics.

This story is one Chad created, and we went through several style changes before we realized what it needed. We made some good cosmetic alterations to important lyrics (this is how we got to “lanterns” and “beacons”, and the friendship theme that runs through it), but it still sounded all wrong. Not urban enough. Then urban, but still not right.

Then we asked ourselves, “How would John Ondrasik [Five For Fighting] do this?”

Four phrases in, I had tears in my eyes. We immediately high-fived—we both knew we had finally gotten it right.

“I Only Know Your Light” found its voice.

Anything to add to this, Chad?

CHAD: I have worked in the tech field for decades, and I often worked a lot of hours late into the night. Especially when I was younger. Sometimes it was only me in the office late at night, but as I aged and had less reason to stay later, I noticed a lot of the younger developers would stay long hours. I’d review code check-ins and see really late nights had happened.

This made me think about how these kids were often alone, with no family, and no real active social life. It seemed pretty lonely to me. So, I decided to write something about that loneliness.

As is always the case, Thea helped take a rough version and polished it. I think she made it into something we can be proud of.

THEA: Wait. We both forgot to talk about the stalker vibe. [LAUGHS]

🎵 What a difference a word makes🎵:

When we first thought we were done with this one, the opening  said “I watch your building across the street and I see your light come on.”

I sent it to my niece and her husband, because they both spent their careers working in office buildings. I wanted to see whether the story resonated at all…and they both loved it except they pointed out that these particular lines felt a little creepy. Chad said he knew it felt a little creepy, I wasn’t bothered by it, but the fix I came up with was so easy, I can’t believe we didn’t just do it before asking their opinion of the song: “I see your building across the street, and I see a light come on.”

And that took care of that.

Yikes. [LAUGHS]