Collaboration: Easy Smile - The Time Zone Zombies

[michelew]

Hi everyone!

Weeeeeeeeee're baaaaaaack! Did you miss us?

So after a bit of a hiatus, we've started to dust off our undeveloped demos and continued to write new stuff too. Here's the first song for this year's album - Easy Smile.

David was playing around with a bossa nova groove and chords and came up with this song. He tells me that the lyrics were also inspired by the idea of having the same line start and end a verse. And the rest is our usual collab. process of sending tracks back and forth until we'd landed on the final.

We hope you enjoy it.

Shel




Easy Smile

She had an easy smile
And the light in her hair
Made me remember
something which happened back there
the long, long while
She had an easy smile

He had an easy eye
And a touch of his hand could make her shiver
A look and a sigh
These things she recalls
As years go by
He had an easy eye

Somewhere there’s a woman
She’s holding your heart
Maybe for ever
We all know one thing
A song we all sing
Right from the start
Somewhere she’s holding your heart

Maybe the times
Have torn down those lines
But maybe not...
There’s no mystery
I look like I’m free
But I’m caught
In an easy smile

A day by the river
The last time i saw her
Some things are meant
And some are just there
To tempt
You into exile
There’s a photo somewhere
I still see the light in her hair
And an easy smile

[TGNesh]

Wow.....the opening track of the new album....I think it's very impressive!

This song definitely needs several listens, since there is so much in there. I réally liked the bossa nova groove and the progression had a few interesting twists too. I also very much liked the subtle bass, which added a lot to the overall feel. Add all those vocals, the song remained interesting I have to say, guitar noodles and of course the gorgeous flute and yeah.....i'm impressed!!!

Very very very well done TZZ, fabulous start of the new album! :cheer:

Ness

[wrsomers]

Welcome back TZZ, so good to see you both back at it. A great song and production. The bossa nova beat is very catchy as is the tune. And the lyrics are great. David, you've outdone yourself. I assume there is a personal connection to that story, very wistful. Shel, your production is professional as usual, I liked all the extras, flute, bass, etc.

Bill

[davidrfinn99165]

Hi Ness and Bill.. thx for your kind comments. This one was kind of different, at least in trying to get something to work in the bossa style, so your feedback is very rewarding thankyou....

And so much fun to be back creating songs and tracks with Michele again. We decided to take january off to recharge the creative batteries after the first album, and it turned into 3 months haha. But as Shel said, we have been creating demos and writing new songs, so the next one shouldn't be too long to follow..

thx again
/ david

[sandysue]

Hi David and Michele

That was a comforting, easy to listen to kind of song. I really enjoyed it. You two keep putting out such nice tunes, thank you for posting them.

Sandy

[michelew]

Nessa, Bill and Sandy,

Your responses are music to my ears. To some extent the hardest part of this process is posting the video in the hope that people will enjoy it and then waiting to hear people's reactions. Well your comments make the angst well worth it.

Nessa - yeh David definitely hit on some interesting colours in this song and the bossa groove was a lot of fun. I especially enjoyed building the bassline, it's not complicated but it was fun to play. Don't be fooled by my serious expression - which was actually a "no expression" expression if you know what I mean. I actually find the song building process is sometimes a bit like adding more texture to a painting that's pretty progressed. In this case David sent me several working demos as he was developing it. Once we landed on a starting percussion track and tempo, he basically sent me the rhythm guitar, noodles and vocal tracks all in one go after a productive day (perhaps it was raining). . Now that he's a GarageBand convert he's going for it. The picture was already painted to a large extent but it was lots of fun enhancing the groove and adding a bunch of textures in different places. The flute is always enjoyable too. Thanks for being so sweet to us. I hope you enjoy it more and more if you keep listening to it.

Bill - thanks! That's high praise given the high production value videos you're churning out. It's really motivating to get such wonderful comments. And Yep I absolutely agree with your comments about David; he certainly has the songwriting thing down pat. His lyrics are always magic. Thanks again.

Sandy - thanks! It's nice hearing you enjoyed it. Thanks for being so supportive as always.

You're a bunch of sweeties.

Ta

Shel

[willem]

Again a beautiful production, on a certain moment I start whistling along and that means a lot..

Willem

[dekotaj]

Weeeeeeeeee're baaaaaaack! Did you miss us? Yes we did.

Bravo you two.You both did a great job.Looks like your having fun. And that's what music is all about.Good job on the backing vocals Sis.

Look forward to the rest of your 2nd album.

Kev

[neverfoundthetime]

Welcome back guys! Nice rhythm and flow all the way through.
Were the lyrics there at the beginning or did they come after the music was finished or did it all happen at once Dave?

[davidrfinn99165]

neverfoundthetime wrote:

Welcome back guys! Nice rhythm and flow all the way through.
Were the lyrics there at the beginning or did they come after the music was finished or did it all happen at once Dave?

Thx Willem, Kev, Chris..... this one the words and music pretty much came together Chris, though i had been playing around with bossa chords for a few days. The song was more or less driven off the first line, which i thought would work for a bossa tune. I generally tweak a few words, lines or phrases after the demo version - in this one i think i may have swapped the order of verses 2 and 3 at some point.

For the transition into the second half of the verse i re-used an idea from one of the first of Neil's songwriting challenges which we tackled last year..... ditto the first couple of chords in the bridge, though i reversed the sequence. After that fortunately we have Shel-Zombie to create the bossa sound and all the other parts.

cheers, David