News: Stephen Cullen

Keeping the faith while keeping it real

Photo by Geryah Dingle 

The story behind my song, "Walking Alone," is that it takes a look inside the thoughts of people you may not think are genuinely going through it. Perhaps some things beneath the surface are not apparent to the outward eye that they keep to themselves due to not wanting to make others feel uncomfortable or obligated to take action.

I wrote the original lyrics and composition back in 2011, as an acoustic guitar track, but Stephen Cullen and I started working on the production on 23 May 2021 and finished in about three weeks. We worked remotely, starting with just my iPhone demo recording and the song's sticky guitar riff that we re-imaged for piano.

As is a common practice, I started by providing some reference tracks to try and shape where it was that I wanted the song to go. For me, this is always one of the most difficult things to articulate. We settled on producing a Coldplay-style track with a cross between the mellowness of "The Scientist" and the acoustic riffs of "Clocks." 

The first thing we did, to get started, was to transcribe the demo to a rough piano track. We went with an initial working tempo of 95bpm, leaving the door open to change it later - which we did. The final track is a little more lively at 105 bpm. 

With the transcription in hand, I recorded a new vocal using the piano as a 'karaoke' track for my first pass. It was at this time when I started thinking about what else we could bring to the instrumentation to fill out the song, add some movement, dynamics, or life. Originally, there was no clear bridge so I knew we needed to add something to keep it interesting. Mind you, this is not a happy song so whatever we came up with had to fit the overall vibe. 

We started to think back on the inspiration for the track and consider the elements we were going for including structure, instrumentation, and rhythms. We also experimented with the arrangement - moving verses around, trying on one of the verses as a 'bridge' type section. It was also at this point that we increased the tempo to 105 bpm to give the song a stronger sense of a drive, and a feeling of 'walking' with determination.

By Version 4, we included more polish on the mix and several new elements - including a few guitar tracks. After which, we added a few more percussion elements to accentuate section changes, and played with the dynamics throughout. 

This song was really fun to work on and I love the instrumentation on this one. It makes you move and has strong, authentic messaging to match. For me, it tells both sides of the faith journey and just keeping it real. 

Listen to "Walking Alone" on 17 September 2021 on all platforms.

Listen Here.