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Restraint: 1. The One to Make You Whole

One of the most versatile chord progressions in rock music -- as demonstrated in this video by the Axis of Awesome -- is I-V-vi-IV. It's the chord progression used by U2 in "With or Without You", which is where I got the idea to use it in "The One to Make You Whole" -- with some minor adjustments.

My version of the progression is I-v-bVI-IV, or with in an approximate key of D major, D-Am-Bb-G. The notes F and B vacillate between its sharp and flat respectively, and the melody reflects this subtle instability. It also makes it a damn hard melody to sing.

I recorded numerous takes of this vocal, and every one of them had their problems. I'm not completely satisfied with the take I eventually used, which is not so great when I consider the song one of the few singles on the album. I really need to start collaborating with musicians better than I.

I sketched this song out in early 1999, at a time I wasn't doing much songwriting, and I was really missing it. I threw together the melody and the harmonic rhythm fairly quickly, and the lyrics poured out. It's a song about songwriting or perhaps more generally, the creative impulse. But if you want to hear it as a love song, that's OK as well.

-- Posted: 2009-05-25 05:02:00