A Note About Oslo

A few weeks ago, I went into the studio to work on an incredible session with a full orchestra, recording two of the new songs from The Protector with my very good friend and extremely talented arranger, Paul Dougherty.

The week prior the session, I posted a write-up about one of the songs we’d be recording for the musicians I’d be woking with, as well as for friends to read. It’s kind of an in depth look at the sort of creative process I’ve been working with while writing the music for this upcoming album.

I thought it would be fun to post it here on the site for anybody who might be interested in reading up on it. So, with no further ado…

A Note About Oslo

So, in less than a week I will be spending a full 12 hour day at a studio here in Boston hashing out two tunes that have been put together in a collaborative project with a very talented arranger, and friend of mine, Paul Dougherty. This session is slightly experimental in the way it’s being run, but that is exactly the spirit I want to follow in recording the songs that will be part of my new album “The Protector”. 

Under the directing of Paul, we will be recording two new songs (“Hello Apocalypse” and “Oslo”) with our own little orchestra; and we’re doing so with a bit of a motown spirit - It’s more like recording a live session - everybody recorded together. My current intention is to eventually release these two songs as a free EP. An adventure will ensue do doubt.

I thought, in preparation for our big day, that it would be interesting to post a little bit of backstory into the creative process I experienced while writing “Oslo”.

First and foremost, Oslo is not a love song. It is rather, a tragic love story.

I thought it would be interesting to set the story in Oslo, which is an incredibly urban and modern hub surrounded by the beauty of Scandinavian Nature. The Mountains. The Ocean. The perfect place for an urban American to travel to feel the familiarity of a big city, surrounded by something less familiar and slightly more “mythic”. And that ultimately became a direct reflection of the characters. An American man, entranced by a strange and beautiful Scandinavian woman. 

But Oslo isn’t about them. It’s about spontaneity vs. order. And ultimately these two characters represent spontaneity and order. Her being spontaneity and him, order.

I have a strange relationship with spontaneity and order. I feel like my art and my craft require me to understand and utilize spontaneity in one sense, but in the other sense I don’t feel that I fully grasp it - and in many ways, reject it. I seem to be more driven by order. My morals, my faith, my everyday habits - all driven by unrelenting order. In a sense I think I fear spontaneity - and I think I fear it because it seems ultimately destructive. However, I also wonder if it’s possible that my life could one day crumble beneath me because I do not allow myself to leave behind my life of obstinate order to find the equilibrium of the two: The middle ground.

Musically, Oslo is a whirlwind of modal mixture. Major key ideas that either blink or swell with moments of minor tonality. Major tonality representing spontaneity, and minor representing order. 

The song begins in a stable major key, but glimpses of minor moments become increasingly apparent as the musical story progresses. Spontaneity and order fighting each other to take lead.

It’s strange. I place more weight on order in my own everyday life, but I chose to represent it with minor key ideas. Why? I’m not fully sure. And looking back on it,  I’m especially not sure why I did this, when I decided that my female character would drown herself in a final moment of major tonality.

I guess it’s because I didn’t want a suicidal death to decide the fate of the story for the listener. I instead, think that I wanted it to feel like one last grand gesture. And ultimately, I think a major key covers more ground in delivering a “big” finish. I wanted the finish to feel bewildering, maybe even saddening - I guess I wanted it to feel epic.

I’ve always been taken with epic stories. To me, epic stories come in two forms: Firstly, epic in the sense that the story is vast in terms of characters, it’s setting, and the mythology created to support the story; or secondly, epic in the sense that it revolves around a single idea that has several different things happening that resonate with a deeper meaning - a moral, an emotion, or an ideal. 

Creating an epic story in a three and a half minute song form is difficult, so it only felt natural to go with the latter version of an epic story - and with that in mind, let the music represent the characters, emotions, and meaning.

The lyrics are simple, and they need to be. Giving too many details made the song too confusing. Trying to relay emotions through the characters ultimately made the song feel daunting and laborious.

So I went with a simple story. Man finds woman. Man spends summer with woman enraptured by desire. Man leaves woman but promises to return to her. Woman goes crazy alone and drowns herself. Simple indeed. But I still needed a few decent moments of small but specific lyric choices that would give the characters more depth and direction:

• Her hair isn’t blonde. Her hair isn’t golden. It’s flaxen. A yellowed grey color with a translucent quality - Possibly noting she may be wise beyond her years - or maybe just lending a more mysteriously quality to her. Maybe even suggesting she could be an illusion.

• They wake in the mornings surrounded by fog. A looming foreshadow of the Norse woman’s final demise.

• The wind in the fall points him home.

• The lyrics in the chorus change each time. I found my heart in Oslo. I left my heart in Oslo. I lost my heart in Oslo. On this note : He leaves her, but he losers her.

In my final thoughts I will return to the last moment of the song. A beautiful heartbroken woman submerging herself into the sea - to be swallowed in and carried away.

But I struggled with why she was ending her life. I’ve narrowed it down to two possible reasons:

• Firstly, she is bewildered, and in a final act of spontaneity ends her life to end her pain.

• Or secondly, she walks into the Sea (where they met) one last time, to wait for him in the afterlife. 

I don’t want to decide. You can.

As far as spontaneity vs. order, all I can conclude is that I am uncertain if they can fully exist on the same plane. It’s push and pull - and in some cases one or the other. In my life at least.

I’m unsure if I’ll ever experience both equally. However, I can say that Oslo seems to mirror my own fears of what I could lose by continuously choosing order over spontaneity.

And ultimately all because I fear spontaneity.

Fear. Fear. Fear. We’re constantly surrounded by it.

- Mie, November 2011

The Lyrics

I’m from the South, where the sun always kisses your skin

When you open eyes in the morning

So I never thought I would fall in love by the Northern Sea,

But the waves seduced me

Down by the beach, on the docks, I saw her flaxen hair

As it danced in the wind

And then she turned, and she caught my eyes with her crystal gaze,

And called me to her 

I found my heart in Oslo

By the ocean, off some broken road

She took my hand

Said “Darling stay, Don’t go”

We spent the summers entwined, alone on the briny beach

Greeted by foggy mornings

Then fall came along, and I felt the wind blowing West

Calling me back to my home

I left my heart in Oslo

By the ocean, off some broken road

I wiped her tears

Said “Darling, I must go”

So I left with promise to return by the end of spring

But went I came back to find her, she had been swallowed by the sea

I lost my heart in Oslo

By the ocean, off some broken road

She wiped her tears

Submerged herself below