Big Plans Gets Song-Exploded

Howdy, friends! It’s been a while. Last time I wrote was at the end of January. Back then, I was reporting to you about our recent adventures in the studio, and I had lofty ambitions of writing regular blog posts to share updates about the Slim Volume Universe.

I’ll write blogs monthly, I thought.
Hell, maybe even weekly!

Well, here we are in early November, and I’m posting my second blog. What’s that old saying about the best laid plans?

Post Contents

Anyways, a lot has happened since that inaugural blog post.

For example, in May, we released a new EP, "Back To You". Many thanks and thanks-agains to all of you who have taken the time to listen to it. We’ve been really pleased with the positive feedback we’ve heard about that little collection of songs.

That EP was the result of a series of recording sessions at Blackheart Studios in Manchester that spanned September 2023 to January 2024—the very same sessions that were documented in my last blog post. If you read that post, or watched the accompanying video footage, you might remember that our goal for those sessions was to get enough material for two EPs to be released before the end of 2024.

Eric (owner, Blackheart Studio) working the faders. Big dog.

Well, now we’re back with EP number 2! It’s called Big Plans and it’s out now wherever you stream music. Like its predecessor, it’s got four brand new songs that we’re excited for you to hear.

The EP’s title track “Big Plans” is actually what the rest of this post is all about.

One of the coolest things about releasing a new song you wrote into the world is that you can remember that song at every stage of its development: when it starts out as little more than a riff or a half-baked melody, the moment you come up with some lyrics you like, that intimidating moment you first show the band your new idea, plus all the ways the song shifts through band practices and jams, live performances, and finally in the recording studio.

A song changes a thousand little ways between the moment it's conceived and the day it comes out for public consumption. It can be an overwhelming task remembering all those little tweaks:

What was that new chord change I played last time?

What was the melody that went over these chords?

I had some good words for this, but what were they?

Forgetting a good idea is the worst—just ask legendary filmmaker David Lynch—so a songwriter’s best freind can be the Voice Memos app on their phone. Whenever I ever have a song idea, however small it might seem, I always record it. How songwriters remembered the little things back before voice memos, I have no idea. Without recordings to go back and reference, it can be easy to lose track of an idea for good.

So, we thought it might be fun to put some of those voice memos to good use.

In this post we’re going to track the gestation of a song—our new song “Big Plans”—from conception through release. And we’ll tell the story through the recordings we captured along the way. If you’ve ever listened to the podcast Song Exploder, that’s kind of the idea for this post.

Disclaimer: It’s difficult to write about your own song without it coming across as conceited or self-important. I’m blogging about “Big Plans” not because I think it’s the greatest song ever written, but because it’s been through so many stages in its short life.

summer 2024. the eventual Big Plans album pic.

I chose this song because I can trace its origins to the very beginning. It’s like an archeological dig where there’s no digging and mostly it’s just me listening to old recordings and cringing at my voice.

And sure, I wrote the original kernel of the song. But it’s been morphed and nudged and changed along the way by every other member of Slim Volume, plus some people who aren’t even in the band.

For anyone who writes songs, I hope maybe you can see parts of your own process reflected in this post.

For anyone who has never written a song, maybe it will be an interesting look at the process.

For anyone who has never even heard a song, I hope you’ll check out some songs. Songs are great.

Okay, here goes…

Stage 1: Voice Memos
(January 2021)

The kernel of the idea that became the song “Big Plans” came into being almost four years ago, on January 27 and January 28, 2021—over a year before Slim Volume was even a band.

The reason I know the exact dates is because between those two days on my Voice Memos app there’s a cluster of recordings with the following titles:

“Big train, big plans?”
“Big Train Good Thing”
“Big train good thing”

Evidently I thought I was writing a song about a train.

Listening back to those first recordings, I can kind of hear why. At this nascent stage, the new idea is forming almost as a rollicking country tune centered around a little twangy guitar lick that I couldn’t really play yet (I’m not sure I can play it now, to be honest):

[Voice Memo 1 clip - January 27, 2021]

In this first voice memo from January 27, you can hear that all I’ve figured out is the first set of chords and the faintest hint of a melody. Around 30 seconds in, I try to find a new chord to change to, hoping my fingers will just magically land somewhere interesting and then…buzz, zang, crash…nope, not so much. Maybe I’ll listen back and find it later.

These early recordings are what I call “mumble tracks”—a phrase I’m 99.9% sure I stole from Jeff Tweedy and his excellent songwriting book. Every songwriter is different. I’m sure some come up with lyrics first, then the melody follows. For some lucky souls, both a melody and lyrics that make sense might come all at once.

For me (and I suspect many others) I most often start out with the sketch of a melody attached to a loose handful of words that emerge in a stream of consciousness as I mumble-sing along.

At this phase, I’m not thinking about meaning; I’m not thinking about what’s cool or interesting to sing (obviously, since at this point I’m writing a song about big trains); I’m just falling blindly from word to word as they happen to appear in my brain and fit in the melody. And praying something interesting comes out of my mouth.

Hours, days, weeks, or months later, I might go back to the mumble track and hear something that inspires me to pick up the idea and run with it:

“Hmm, what was I singing about trains in this one? Now there’s a lyrical theme for the 2020’s: the mighty locomotive! This one’s going straight to number 1!”

[Voice Memo 2 clip - Jan 28, 2021]

By the January 28 recording, it’s obvious this new song about trains or whatever is really stuck in my brain, because I’m back at it, trying to crack the code on it, get to its core. This time I’ve found that chord change that I couldn’t land on the day before. I’m even playing that little twangy lick better (...a little bit better, anyways).

It’s also way, way faster than the day before. But you can almost hear what the song would become in its later form:

Hey, let me ride up on the big train, carried away
But you say [mumble mumble] good thing
When it tears me apart [mumble mumble]
[Mumble mumble] from the start

Lyrically, I’m still stuck riding on the big train; the “big plans” idea hasn’t stuck yet. But there’s that new change I was looking for the day before, and the beginning of a new lyric:

“When it tears me apart…”

Hmm. Not a very optimistic start to a sentence. I don’t know if this happens to other songwriters, but I have a bad habit of writing myself into a corner by getting attached to the way a set of words sounds on melody. I bet that’s what happened here because a version of that line is still in the song today. The line begs a new set of questions:

When what tears me apart?
What happens after that thing tears me apart?
What the hell does any of this have to do with trains?

All questions to be sorted out in another episode.

Stage 2: The First Real Demo
(February 2021)

The real telltale sign that a song has made the leap from “mumble track” to “full-on song idea,” is when that song gets a proper demo recording.

Now demos can take many forms, and that word means different things to different artists. For some artists a demo might mean an almost fully produced song, with fleshed-out parts for drums, bass, lead guitar, piano, etc., all recorded to a click. In other words, a nearly release-worthy recording.

When I say “demo” that’s not what I’m talking about.

When I demo a song, I use my cheap USB microphone to record a basic acoustic guitar part to capture the chord progression, and then record a doubled vocal track over that. Sometimes, if I’m feeling fancy I’ll layer in a rough hewn lead guitar idea, or maybe even a little keyboard or bass.

But usually, it’s just acoustic and vocals. And the demo is meant to be like a proof of concept—evidence that the idea still holds my attention when it has some of the rough edges sanded down.

In February of 2021, I recorded this demo of Big Plans:

[Big Plans - Jake Demo]

By the time of this demo recording, I’ve thankfully dumped the “big train” idea and found some more of the lyrics following the thread of “making lots of big plans.” Something of a broad lyrical theme has emerged—it has something to do with aspirations, the “big plans” we make for ourselves, hopes and fears, all that stuff.

But there’s still some placeholder lines in there. “Couldn’t tell us apart, but you know I know,” for example has no real connection to the rest of the song. I don’t hate it. But I don’t know how it connects to making big plans.

The melody has been honed in and sharpened a bit, and I’ve found some vocal harmony ideas. I’ve even tossed in some hastily-played guitar lead ideas with an acoustic over the middle sections.

But that’s about it.

Okay. Cool little song idea. File that one away with the others.

And, for a while, that was it. “Big Plans” existed in this form for the next couple of years, as a demo recording gathering dust that I would listen back to from time to time and listen back to and think to myself, “Huh. Okay. Cool little song idea. Maybe I can do something with that one day.”

Stage 2: Mike and Jonny
(December 2022)

“Big Plans” sat on the shelf for almost a year and a half before I dusted it off at a jam with Mike and Jonny (Slim Volume’s lead guitarist and drummer, respectively). At some point, I started playing the chords to Big Plans, just to see if they’d stick.

Soon enough, Jonny and Mike found their way into the groove of the song and were coming up with ideas of their own. By the end of the night, something that changed the song permanently happened.

[Big Plans - Mike and Jonny voice memo]

It started when Mike played a little chuggy guitar lick, something that started as an off-the-cuff idea. Duh-na na-na na-na na-na NUH-NUH.

Knowing a good idea when he hears it, Mike came right back to it, and this time Jonny picked up on Mike’s queue, tapping along and really emphasizing the NUH-NUH at the end of the lick. Listen to that moment at the 20-second mark in the audio clip.

After we finished playing, I started talking, when Mike and Jonny cut me off…

“Wait, go back to that!”

“Back to what?”

I’d been so focused on playing the chords right, so locked in on showing them “my” song, I’d totally missed their breakthrough. I’d missed the moment it became our song.

We went back, jammed on the song a few more times, now really focusing on the new lick, and emerged from the jam excited to bring the song to the next band practice. That little motif, that guitar lick and rhythm, is now essential to the final version of “Big Plans.” If you listen to the finished track it won’t take you long to hear it—it’s there in the first 10 seconds of the song. It’s the part that chugs along kind of like a…dare I say it?...big train.

Stage 4: Trent Puts His Mark on Things
(January-February, 2023)

Just after the new year in 2023, Jonny, Mike, and I brought the newly reinvigorated “Big Plans” to a band practice to show Trent.

He took my original acoustic guitar part to new levels with his singular style of acoustic playing—building little melodies seamlessly into the chord progression. And it wasn’t long before he contributed another new idea that made the song what it is today.

After we’d played the song a few times all together, Trent developed an idea for a whole new part to the song. He started playing an ascending, psychedelic chord progression that reminded me more of Pink Floyd and the Beatles than the country western songs that inspired the original song idea:

[Trent outro idea clip]

But there was something cool about that. I’m always drawn to the idea of melding musical ideas from seemingly disparate genres or traditions. So we followed this new wormhole together as a band.

After some wrangling with the chord progression to find the right transitions, we had it. It took us a long time to memorize all the little timing and feel changes, the ways the chord progressions locked into each other, but once we did, we were all really excited.

Using Trent’s new chords as a template, I had the idea to write the final set of lyrics, to serve as a kind-of coda:

You’re all worked up
It’s plain to see
It’s in the air
It’s out of reach
Oh no, where’d all your big plans go?

Always looking on the bright side.

Stage 5: In the Studio
(September 2023)

And that just about brings us to today.

When we brought the song to Blackheart to record, we had the privilege to work with the very talented James Palko (of Jimmy Montague, Taking Meds, Perspective, a Lovely Hand to Hold, among other projects).

James worked as a producer on the song, and helped Mike develop on a blistering guitar solo for the outro. We captured that collaborative moment on video here:

SV TV | Blackheart Recording Studio BTS (go to 6:51)

The lead, played by Mike, and workshopped by the four of us in the studio, was the final touch. The last detail in a song that has become something I never would have anticipated back in January 2021 when I sat down to hum a melody about big trains into my phone.

That’s the beauty of collaboration in music—it takes you places you never set out to go.

–Jake, 11/1/24