-STORY ABOUT THE SONG-
Writing this song was a major project. It was not like anything I had ever written before. At the time I sat down to begin Gray Skies, Sunny Smiles, I knew I wanted to write a lengthy sort of epic that would not only go through different stages lyrically, but musically as well. Gun’s N Roses 'Estranged' served as my inspiration.
Completing it took about 3 ½ weeks - July 15, 2000 to August 9, 2000. I wanted these lyrics to really be powerful with meaning, so I made sure I spent time with them. During the course of the 3 weeks, I brought more and more of the past musical ideas I had reserved for other songs, and put them together to use in this song. I was so surprised at how well everything worked and sounded as one. The changes in tune and melody gave the song a lot more depth and dimension.
When writing the lyrics, I would think about what I’d want a certain section to be about, and then I’d try to write about that. Since this song had so many parts, I was able to not only write about the specific subject, but also about the viewpoints and aspects of life surrounding that subject. Everything just seemed to fit perfectly into place, giving a unique feel to the whole thing. When I was done, I was surprised I pulled it off. It was not like I thought it was some huge masterpiece or anything, but in my mind, it was a huge challenge. So having the finished product in my hands felt good.
When it came time to record Gray Skies, Sunny Smiles in the studio, another challenge lay ahead. Mario and I looked at the length of the song and wondered how we would ever get through it without giving ourselves ulcers in the process! The stress of recording a regular 3-minute song was bad enough - especially if you were the drummer. You could be on the 5th minute of a 6-minute song, but if you messed up - even missed just one small beat - you would be forced to record the whole song all over again. While picking up where you left off, or “punching in” a good part over a bad, is fine to do with guitar, bass, vocals, and every other instrument of the world, doing so with drums would sound too noticeable and inaccurate, and in effect, cannot be done. But one thing this song had was lots of short pauses in-between tempo and style changes. So for every pause that I approached and passed successfully, I was relieved to know that if I did happen to mess up, I would at least be able to pick up from after the pause, rather than from the very beginning of the entire song.
I can’t remember exactly how the drum recording for Gray Skies, Sunny Smiles played out, but I remember it being a heck of a lot easier than I thought it would be. The entire song may have actually been one take - I can’t remember. But I do know that by the time I got to the very end where the song does that instrumental sort of outro as it fades into the wind, my arms were about ready to fall off from playing so hard and being so tense. When it was over though, I rejoiced.
Then it was time for Mario to record his guitar parts, overlapping every guitar track two times for a fuller sound. He first laid down all the rhythm guitars (the basic background guitars), and then recorded all his lead guitar parts. When he finished that, it was then time to record bass.
Before we even stepped foot in the recording studio, we spent about a year just preparing for it. During that time, we practiced a lot and developed all our songs by adding more backgrounds, extra guitars, new parts, etc. However, one thing Mario and I didn’t really decide on was how the bass would go during the instrumental ending of Gray Skies, Sunny Smiles. Mario thought the bass should follow the root notes of the guitar, while I thought the bass should do its own thing, and also hold out the same note for several measures as the guitar changed. Since we couldn’t agree during the song development pre-studio phase, we decided to just move on to other things and come back to it a little bit down the road. Well one thing led to another, and I guess we forgot to go back and work on deciding which version sounded better… well, until we were in the studio ready to record the part. Then we remembered.
Not knowing what to do, and totally against making forced decisions under pressure, we decided to just record both versions, and later pick the one to use during mixing - the part of the recording phase where all the recorded parts (drums, guitar, bass, vocals, etc.) are mixed together. So that’s what we did. That part was so tiring because it did the same exact thing over and over and over again, and I had to move my fingers pretty fast around the fret board. Anyway, after both parts were recorded, we ended up picking the one I liked more. I was happy!
There were some last minute ideas I wish could have been added to the song - mainly background clips I was going to ask Jami to act out - but there just wasn’t enough time for everything. We were in the studio till about 3AM that July 9th, that final day, putting the last touches of special effects over the ending. The wind turned out a lot scarier than I actually intended it to, and the ending a little shorter than I wanted. But in the end, it was perfect. However, we didn’t realize how perfect till some time later, when we tried uploading our CD to
MP3.com. It was then we discovered that if we had gone even one second longer on that ending, or one second longer anywhere else on the CD for that matter, we would have had to cut out an entire song! You see, regular CD’s fit 74 minutes of music. But
MP3.com CD’s only fit 61 minutes and 17 seconds. Actually, they are supposed to only fit 60 minutes exactly, but I guess no one’s really counting. What happened was when we first tried uploading our music, it got denied because our CD was too long. We were bummed and thought we’d have to kick a song off our album, but then Mario thought he could give cutting a few seconds off the CD a try. The only part he could cut off was just before Memories Made, Times Forgotten where we had a clip of rain falling for six-seconds before the actual song began. The length of the rain wasn’t planned. It was just how long it ended up being. When he cut the entire 6-second part out and tried uploading the CD again, it got accepted. We couldn’t believe it because we didn’t think it would really work. Then, just for curiosities sake, Mario tried adding one second of rain at a time and uploading the album to see how close we had made it by. To our surprise, even adding just one extra second to the album got the entire CD denied! Playing one song just a hair slower, or fading out just a little longer, or anything just a little different would have totally messed everything up. It’s so crazy to think how perfect every single beat and every single thing had to be played and recorded in order to make the CD fit without even one second to spare. That’s just way too crazy to be coincidence.
Gray Skies, Sunny Smiles is a song I’m really glad I had enough motivation to write, and a song that I feel gives this album a lasting finish. It’s the song that I wanted my all to go into - from the days I began writing, to the last minutes of the recording process. Though Dave (our mix engineer) did call it an “instrumental masterpiece,” I’d rather not flatter myself. For all I know, it may end up being everybody’s least favorite song for one reason or other. But whatever happens, that song will always be an achievement for me, and something I’ll always be proud of.
Well, I guess it’s time to wrap this thing up. Sorry for going on so long. I just wanted to make sure I spent time writing about all the processes that went into putting this song on our very first CD, Memories Made, Times Forgotten. And with that, I’ll let you go now. That’s the whole story. I hope it was worth telling. -Marc Morcos
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