Following the “Download of the Month” release, members of MBG will share their thoughts about that song in subsequent blog posts. We hope it’ll give you a greater appreciation for the tune and all that went into writing and recording it. Enjoy!
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Back in February ’09, Jerry challenged me to work with him on a project for “National Album-Writing Month,” whatever in the world that is. I’m a sucker for a good project like that, but I wanted to get focused. My twist on the idea was that this could be a perfect platform for jump-starting the original music side of MBG, something for which I’d been angling for a while. We got a really good start on the project, with 10 pretty solid initial ideas, but we got sidetracked, and nothing would come of those songs for nearly two years. “How Did I Get Here” was the first of that batch of songs to see the light of day; I suspect that you’ll hear at least five or six more, eventually.
Jerry and I have co-written many tunes over the years, but one of the primary ways we’ll work is that he’ll send me snippets of songs and let me take them from there. I keep imagining that I’ll finish a draft, and that he’ll edit and send it back, but somehow we keep ending up using whatever I sent for a first draft, which keeps me on my toes! Sometimes, when Jerry and I build these houses together, he’ll send me a complete structure, and I’ll just stick on a roof. Sometimes, it just needs a good coat of paint by the time it gets to me. Sometimes, he’ll send a door mat over and say, “build me a house!” Well, metaphorically, anyway. He’s never actually said that. In this case, what Jerry contributed stuck around pretty much unchanged as the final chorus and hook of the song – you can hear it yourself in this original demo snippet that he sent.
Not sure at all what I had in mind with the writing on this, but I imagine that the singer is a happier relation of the guy from “Gonna Get It Right” – the lyrics are definitely working a similar vein of the same desperate need for redemption through love, and all that sort of thing. I just know that when the guitars and the big harmonies kick in during the instrumental break and the last chorus, I get a big arena-sized rush of adrenaline – it’s definitely one of the more fun tunes that I ever get to play.
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TO DOWNLOAD NOVEMBER’S SONG “HOW DID I GET HERE,” CLICK HERE
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