Too many songs

[arthur]

Mr. Adkins,
How did you limit your catalog down to the 10 songs or so you have on your new album? I know you let trusted people listen to your songs, but for me it seems different people pick different songs. You know, one man's trash is another man's treasure. Did you base all your decisions on other people's opinions?

Arthur Alligood

[Greg Adkins]

Well hello Arthur Alligood... welcome to the board.

Man, that's a tough question. I'll tell you kind of what the process was that I went through and it probably won't help you all that much, because it felt really imperfect.

Anyway, before I went to record the record, I had probably around 20 songs that I thought were good enough to go on the record. I burned some CDs of those 20 songs and gave them to about 10 friends and asked their honest opinions...

And you're right, they all disagreed so it really didn't help that much, although, there were some songs that turned up on almost everyone's list, but those were my favorites anyway. Picking the first 7 songs was easy... getting the last 5 was really hard.

So, from there I started thinking about what I wanted the album to sound like... did I want more fast or slow... more hard or soft... a good balance of both? What lyrical themes did I want to include... did I want it to be a strongly "christian" album with a lot of inclusive Christian language (cause I have a few songs like that) or did I want it to lean more towards being a Christ-inspired album about life (less "inclusive" christian language)... you know what I'm saying here I hope.

Anyway, doing that, I was able to get down to 15 songs. I took those 15 with me to Nashville, knowing that we would only be able to record 11. Me and Andy spent the whole first day in the studio playing through all 15 songs. At the end of the day, we laid them out on the floor (lyric sheets everywhere) and discussed each one. We ended up with a keeper stack of 9 songs and then 6 songs in the "maybe" pile. We decided we'd have time to record 12 songs so 4 needed to go.

Let me just tell you, when I looked at those 6 songs, knowing 4 of them needed to be cut, it killed me, because I really liked all 6 songs a lot. I wanted to record them all... I finally had to remember that just because the song doesn't go on the record doesn't mean the song goes away... I kind of look at it as a good start for my next record if I ever get to make one.

In the end, I deferred to Andy's judgement on which songs to cut. There was one I fought for and I'm glad I did (Be the Body) but mostly, I wanted to work on the songs he was the most excited about. If the producer is working on songs he's not excited about, I think that's going to show... I felt like for the most part, Andy was happy with the songs we chose to record and honestly, the songs he liked the best in pre-production, tended to come out the best in the end. For example, the song "Heavenly Descent" was his favorite in pre-production which was weird... it was the first one I would have cut... but he had some great production ideas and it ended up being my favorite song on the record.

So long story short... if you're self-producing your project, I'd say trust yourself... make the kind of record you want to make, but think it over. If you're being produced, trust your producer. If you trust him enough to make your record, you should trust him enough to let him have a major say in what songs go on it.

How's that for a long answer to a short question?

- Greg

[arthur]

Thanks Greg. I am trying to figure out where I am going(or need to go) with my songs. I don't have many of them recorded yet(demo wise), but I do have most them in a folder on my computer. Would you be interested in reading over my lyrics? I am kind of scared about sharing and stuff with anybody, but you seem to have good taste in wiriting, i.e. Bill Mallonee, Andrew Peterson, etc... so it seems right to do so. I really want to put out something amazing in the future and I just kind of need people to say that I am on the right track or maybe on the wrong track. At your cd release, I plan on playing mostly new material and then maybe you can give me some good feedback. I tend to be stubborn about my songs and have avoided this before. Reaching out for me is a huge first step. Well, just tell me what you think.

[Greg adkins]

Arthur,

I would be glad to take a look at them and give you my opinions. God has blessed you with such a unique writing style... you say things in ways most people wouldn't think of which is something I love. It's why I love Mallonee... his imagery is so unexpected most of the time.

You can either email them to me at [e-mail] or you can just post them here... I don't know if you want to do that or not, but sometimes community feedback can be good. I know that's scary... if you just want to email them, that's cool.

I'm really excited for you to make another record Arthur... I really enjoyed your first one and I'm sure there are even better things to come.

For those of you reading this, Arthur sings on my record on the song "Heavenly Descent". On the "deep and wide" part, it is predominantly Arthur's voice you hear in the left speaker... Andy Osenga's is primarily in the right speaker.

- Greg

[Mac]

I am curious as to which songs were close, but did not make it on the album.

[Greg adkins]

Hey Mac,

Well, the last song to go was a song called "The End of You and Me". It killed me not to do that one... it was one of my very favorites. Also cut right at the end were "Little", "Breakdown", "Under the Sun", and a newer one called "Someday".

[jamie]

This is a great thread...I'm bummed that "The End of You and Me" didn't make it!

[jamie]

The ones that got cut are the bonus that people get for seeing you live, I guess!