My initial concept for the ‘Running Behind Time’ album was to record it as a six-song mini album, since I started the recording process with six of my own compositions written. By the end of that recording process, I had written an additional three more songs of my own.
Therefore, I made the decision to extend ‘Running Behind Time’ into a full album. However, I thought that as a full album, it would benefit from some variation in song-writing style and musical influence. I asked lead singer David if he would like to include any of his own compositions on the album.
During the initial recording sessions, I was also aware that the studio engineer (who played bass guitar and other instruments) had written some of his own songs that he hadn’t published. I asked him if he would like to include any of them on the album, and he proposed two songs.
The songs were musical pieces without lyrics, and we agreed that I would write lyrics for these two songs. It was an interesting challenge for me, as the songs were written without lyrics or lyrical structure in mind (as musical pieces without the traditional verse-bridge-chorus progression, or similar). So, I had to find a way to place the lyrics around the melodies without simply following the musical progressions (which would have sounded monotonous), and to create a lyrical melody of their own.
Once I got into the groove of this way of writing, the lyrics came to me very quickly. I presented them to the studio engineer and sang them over the studio demo of the music. Both of us were very happy with the result (apart from my singing 😊), and agreed that our collaboration had worked well.
‘Double Kiss’ was the first of the two songs, and we completed the recording with David on vocals.
The narrative of the lyrics is a chance encounter between two people who had originally met on a travel excursion many years earlier, which had sparked a romantic encounter on that first occasion. However, it was destined not to work out that first time around, due to their disparate lives and circumstances at the time.
It’s up to the listener to fill in the blanks and create their own fictional story around it 😉