Machinery of the Human Heart
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Champagne: behind the song
🕑 Added 2025-11-29 20:38:51 +0000 UTCThis is the 2nd song from Surgery that I will be talking about on here! I'll be talking about the song's influences as well as the writing process! Thanks for your support and patience - I was with family on Thursday and had appointments on Friday.
You could say there was a prompting event for Champagne, though the narrative of the actual song is very fictional and not reflective of any real-life events. At the time I was feeling jealous because my crush was hanging out with someone else who had a crush on them. So I created a fictional premise - a speakeasy or cabaret-goer in love with a performer - and created a manic, passionate character to tell the story.
The piano part came first, then the melody, and then the lyrics. I was heavily inspired by Besitos by Pierce the Veil (linked above!) as well as The Sharpest Lives by MCR.
When you hear Champagne live or isolate the piano part in the recording, you'll hear a very specific piano rhythm - this rhythm was taught to me by a friend who played a lot of bachata music on the classical guitar. I'm grateful for him and for the knowledge he passed on to me, as he helped to birth a song that remains a favorite to me among all else I've made.
One day, my friend came over, and we planned to go to an open mic together. I wanted to finish the song so I could perform it that night. I sat at the piano bench and she stood next to the piano. She started giving me ideas for the progression of the story, and I started rapidly putting rhymes and lyrics together. The whole song took under an hour total to write.
I did come out with two lyrics I had to choose between - "sliding down my sheets in your lingerie" was the initial line, but to make it more family-friendly for coffeehouse open mics, I changed it to "sliding down your seat at the cabaret" which made it into the official recording, though I still perform the former version live. I also try to shake things up live by yelling the "cheap champagne" part and prolonging it by rolling the chords over and over in both hands as I pause.
One more fun fact - I had to take the key signature down a whole step after being on testosterone/HRT for 3 months! Though I'm much happier with my voice now, feel that I have better pitch control, and it is capable of expressing more of who I am.
Thank you for reading and supporting!! When I get home I may make another post documenting a crochet item I've been making.
