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Before They Were Night Vale: When We Went (unfinished)
🕑 Added 2021-05-20 16:45:38 +0000 UTCWelcome to "Before They Were Night Vale", our feature in which Night Vale creators Jeffrey and Joseph share writing from before their Welcome to Night Vale collaboration, along with commentary. Come explore their early writing, both good and bad
I have a folder on my computer where I keep all the music I write. Most of it is unfinished, or scraps of ideas.
My father was a professional musician, and I inherited some of his ability and most of his instruments. But I just don't have the consistency needed to really get better than "ok". I'll play every day for a few weeks, and then not touch an instrument for eight months. I don't know why, but it's fine. I don't need to be great at music. Occasionally I write songs, and it's an enjoyable hobby for me.
When I write a full song and get a recording I like of it, I'll often stick it up on my bandcamp. Rough demos or stuff that I don't plan to make polished versions of sometimes go up on my soundcloud. But a lot of this stuff just never gets finished at all, and it sits in the "Joseph Music Demos" folder forever.
This song, called "When We Went", is a little bit silly and a little bit sad. It's a story about tragedy and revenge, but it's delivered in a kind of community theater tone that maybe undercuts the gravity of the tale. I liked it though, and so in 2018 I decided to really give it a nice recording, adding some accordion and back-up vocals. And then: I dunno, as happens with me, I just didn't finish it. The accordion only shows up on one verse and then disappears for the rest of the song.
So here it is: An almost finished recording of a song that I never quite finished. I hope you enjoy it for what it's worth.
-Joseph
Comments
WhenTheFoxGrins
You have such a unique and pleasant voice. Like umm, I dunno. You have a voice that seems like it would belong to someone you really care about? This is where I usually hold down the backspace button and just click the heart lol But seriously, maybe it's just my untrained ear – as someone who can't play a single instrument and only sings when they're alone with only their rabbit to judge them – it sounds pretty finished to me! When I first started listening I was like "oh, this is nice," and then it just got better and better as it went. I suppose that's partially to do with the fact that the the song is an actual story, so I guess it just naturally built up and up until the end. Ps. I haven't checked out your other music (yet), except for ofc anything that's been played in the NV podcast, but do you ever do like... ahh, I'm not sure what the word is for it, because I don't understand how music works haha, but like, songs with just instruments? Oh, instrumental! I think that's it. The guitar (please god I hope I'm right about that being a guitar ffff) was so relaxing just by itself, and I could see myself vibing to that sorta thing when studying/working etc. (can't listen to words when I'm working, I dunno why?) Have I reached the character limit yet? Let's hope not! -clicks the send button hopefully!-
