REALLY NICE™️

the song:

“HIDE” is about being with someone because how they make you feel or the idea of them rather than who they really are. Sometimes we say “I love you, I want to be with you” but maybe we really mean “I don’t like me, I don’t want to be with myself and you can help distract me from me”.   The idea of love is all fucked up – it gets confused for the temporary high feeling and then people run when things get real or difficult, people get hurt then hurt more people and it’s a cycle.  One I was stuck in until now – going for the wrong people because I didn’t know myself.

I wanted to write a tongue-in-cheek love song from that ugly honest perspective of what people REALLY mean when chasing love these days or (I guess I should say pre-pandemic cus who knows what the future of relationships looks like)

Definitely the happiest sounding thing I’ve ever made, yet it’s a little dark lyrically and that’s my favorite shit. I wrote it one night after a going to a valentines day party in 2018 and I was alone just watching couples and in my head being like “most of you are full of shit”.  

The bridge is me breaking down saying “this is me, ugly parts and all, can you accept it?” Personal moral of the story is relax, stop chasing, just be you and the right thing will happen.

the music:

this has been one of those songs that’s been floating around for a couple years but could not figure out what to do with it. there was an obvious way to present the song but i wanted to flip it and hodge podge a bunch of stuff together that didn’t make sense to make it it’s own. i knew i loved the chorus melody a lot but struggled with the rest. made about 5 different shitty demo versions experimenting with casio dance beats, synthesizer, warping guitar, bossa nova, everything. it was almost every genre before it arrived where it is.

my two favorite parts of the recordings process were:

1. when we were in italy working in the studio, i was introduced to a drummer named Marco Frattini who was there working on another session. We talked and he came in a few days later to record with me. After he tracked drums on a few other songs of mine, at the very end – I played him a demo of “HIDE” and asked him to go in and record the first thing that came to mind. His first pass felt like Ringo Starr. Then I said to him forget that, roll it back and now pretend this is a 90’s hip-hop song. The second he started playing I am pretty sure I lifted off the ground, it was a major aha moment for me after years because I realized rhythmically that was the feel I had always wanted. It created this odd bounce and mix between that and the guitar. After that, I said let’s do one more where you pretend you are Elvin Jones and this is a John Coltrane track, and he approached the whole thing like free jazz, which was another aha moment for me, but more of an internal nerd inaccessible way.

2. Once I brought the tracks back home to Nashville, I was set to go finish them in Atlanta with producer Ben H. Allen. A couple days before was that big turning point in the pandemic where people actually started taking it seriously (like when the NBA and Tom Hanks got involved) – so we decided to work remotely. “HIDE” was our first collaboration and because of the circumstances I had a chance to just hear stuff for the first time basically because I was not there standing over his shoulder while he was working. The drums and bass you hear on the final version were programmed by Ben and they took the whole thing to another level. That was a very cool moment in my kitchen.

the video:

well, i figured i was gonna be inside a while so i got a green screen online and this video is me learning how to use it.

ok that is all for now. you can listen here: