Lost
Writing
I have to say from the start that this is one my favourite songs on the album. I wrote the chords in Columbus Ohio while visiting my brother Joe in November 2008. He has my sister Ceci's old guitar in his apartment and I pick it up and played the chords for this song straight away. It is a different song structure than I usually write and that intrigued me from the start.
I put down a scratch version of it when I returned to Berlin and sang a melody overtop. From the start, some of the lyrics were already there, including the album title - This is where it starts.
Here is part of that scratch demo:
I starting writing the lyrics formally on January 21st at the rehearsal space in Marzahn. I began with a phase that was in my head:
You were barely breathing
But I turned my head away
You needed me to listen
But I kept talking anyway
We all hurt the ones we love
'Cause nothing's gained without a cost
I couldn't get any further plus most of it didn't fit well with the melody.
I came back to it on March 11th. This time the lyric was more focused and in line with the melody:
This is how we break the blinders from our eyes
This is where I start
This is where I turn to walk away
From a bridge I can't repair
Coming back the next day to work on it again, I changed the first line to:
This is why we shade the darkness from our eyes
Once I had that line, everything flowed from there and the lyrics were finished up that day.
Recording
When I played Fab the demo for this one, he was not that impressed. He emailed me a few days later suggesting we drop this song in favour of another called "Reno". I held firm as I believed deeply in this song as I thought it was one if the best lyrics I had written and I loved the unusual structure of the chords.
I always had in mind for the ending to have a big loud rock sound. With the band finished recording the seventh and last rehearsed song on our last day in the studio together, we had a few hours left over. I wanted to record the ending of "Lost". I hadn't yet recorded any of the song, but I want the band to blast away on the ending.
Fab had a wild idea of moving Dave's drums to the stairwell and recording them out there. This is a big old stone build with many floors and a massively echoing stairwell. Like two kids in a candy store, Fab and Dave went to work setting up a simple kit (kick, snare, hi-hat and crash) and a few microphones in the stairwell.
When Dave first hit the snare it sounded like a shotgun had gone off. Peter and I got nasty distorted sounds out of our guitar and bass and with a quick run through of the chords and how to start and stop, we were off recording. Brilliant!
For the overdubs a week later, Fab had a clear vision of the song and we started on recording the rest of it. He had me play a few rounds of the verse's chords on a Telecaster and then he looped it for the rest of the song to give it a hypnotic feel so as to focus people onto the vocal. He had me sing the vocal sitting at his seat at the mixing desk with the speakers blaring and using an SM58 microphone held in my hand together with another microphone just next to it. One of those microphones he ran through a small guitar amp that has a built in rockabilly echo reverb.
The other instruments for the rock out ending are nearly all played by Fab including him singing a synth-like sound that was great fun watching him do.
Track Information
Eric:
Electric Guitars (Telecaster, Washburn (live with the band), Acoustic Guitar, Lead Vocal sung at the mixing desk with two mics (a drum mic and a SM58 mic) held in my hand)
Fab:
Backing Vocals, organ, vocal synth, piano
Dave Hingerty:
Drums (recorded in the stairwell with kick, snare, hi-hat and crash only)
Peter Cheevers:
Bass
Lyrics
Lost
This is why we shade the darkness from our eyes
This is where it starts
This is when the fools believe that lovers never part
And I feel lost
This is why we always hurt the ones we love
We never find the gray
We only choose to close our minds and turn and run away
And I feel lost
I fell the roots of sadness twisting up to take my place
And I fear I can’t repair
This is why there’s nothing gained without a cost
I’m trying to let go
I try to let the armor down and feel the breeze blow
This where it hurts and this is why it aches
When you chip away at love the bough begins to break
And I feel lost
I feel it in the moments it’s so hard to open up and I retreat
And I feel lost
This is how it starts, this is where it ends
We go back and forth and backwards once again
This is how it starts, this is where it ends
We go back and forth and backwards once again