So, a few years ago I was working on an EP. Things were coming along quite nicely, until my computer suffered a complete and total meltdown. Being the naive individual that I was, the concept of things like “back-ups” hadn’t occurred to me at the time, and thus I lost – almost completely – 2 years of work. Lyrics, instrumentals, recordings, artwork. Everything was gone. And with it went my desire to create music. For a while at least.
Recently, however, I came across a few of my early demos which I had placed on a USB Stick in order to let a friend listen to the early drafts. The majority of these songs aren’t close to human consumption, but there was a sweet sense of nostalgia in being able to hear them once more, and refresh my memory. There was, however, one song on this USB which was, more or less, complete. Well, as complete as I intended to make it.
This song was called “18”, and was a rather strange one. To this day, I still can’t decide whether I love it or hate it. It’s certainly not “commercial”, and it’s definitely not “pop” – which I guess was the whole point. Written and recorded a few weeks after a incredibly lousy break-up, it started a trend of “darker” music that would flavour much of the doomed EP. An experiment in electronic music, it also featured my first usage of the dreaded autotune… to “interesting” effect. However, considering it was recorded with my laptop’s in-built microphone, and considering the whole thing was recorded in a single take, I think the quality is passable, at the very least. Though far from perfect.
Publishing this now purely for the sake of having some form of music out there. For a long time after the aforementioned crash I stayed away from music out of bitterness, and a self-induced writer’s block that prevented me from just picking myself up and moving on. By posting this song now, however, I hope to let go of that “era” and look forward to the coming year, in the hope that my next project will be pan out better.
Anyway, this is “18”. Hope you enjoy it.
ROBERT BEGG 