"Overdrive" is the first instalment in what I have found myself calling "the summer trilogy".
This is a trio of songs making up tracks 6, 7 and 8 of the album. They tell the story of a whirlwind relationship at three key points, over the course of the three months of summer. 

"Overdrive", track 6, takes place in June when the young couple first meets. There is an instant spark and both characters dive in headfirst, pedal to the floor, not caring to stop and think, so lost are they in the giddiness of young love. But there is a recklessness to this firework love, the consequences of which are felt in the track that follows ("House of Cards"). 

At some points in "Overdrive", there is an awareness of the chaotic nature of the relationship which has started and gained pace so quickly. There are defiant moments in lyrics such as "if this is going down, then let me fall like this forever" and a desperate kind of hopefulness at the end of every chorus in the phrase "maybe we'll find forever as we go".  The characters are scared of how quickly everything is happening but the adrenaline of it all makes the fear easy to brush aside. 

And the conflicting feelings of fear and optimism are not one-sided. I wanted it to be clear in the song that despite the suddenness of it all, there are real feelings of care from both sides of this relationship, shown in lyrics such as "you put your shaking hand in mine, and somehow made me feel alright". They are scared but they are united.

I'm proud of the juxtapositions in this song - it's fearful yet hopeful, chaotic yet genuine. It's easy to roll your eyes at the youthful naivety expressed in "even though it's only been a week or two, I'm starting to build my life around you" but I find it hard not to be moved by heartfelt declarations like "I don't think I've ever wished this hard for things to stay the way they are".  

Sonically, I knew the song had to be bright and upbeat to capture the feeling of young summer love. The verses have a sweetness to them, while the grungy guitars in the chorus added an edgier sound, representing the more chaotic side to the relationship.  

Lastly, I'd like to clarify that these lyrics are written on an entirely FICTIONAL premise, as opposed to personal - I have never actually been told I look like Stevie Nicks lol :))

Daydreams

Overdrive

This song is part two of "the summer trilogy".

After the honeymoon period in "Overdrive", this is where it all comes crashing down. Set in July, this song is about first heartbreak, frustration and loss. The persona is grieving for the relationship that has fallen apart as swiftly as it began. They are caught between stubbornly believing it was the realest thing they've ever felt and realising that the whirlwind nature of the romance means it was never built to last.

All the while, they're dealing with comments from people who assume, because of the shortness of the relationship, that it will be easy to move on from.

I think this is one of, if not my favourite song on the album. I love the melancholy that permeates the melody as well as the lyrics. I love how it feels like one final desperate reach for something already lost. I love the quiet sadness interspersed with flashes of anger. For me, it represents the tumult that is heartbreak, especially at a young age.

House of Cards

This song walks a fine line between bemused indifference and genuine frustration and disappointment. It's essentially about being ghosted by someone who seemed at first to be the more invested one in the relationship. As a result, there's an internal conflict between a sort of detached confusion and genuine hurt.

I knew I wanted this song to be upbeat and fun, and for the most part it is. However, as is typical of my writing, there is an underlying sadness that becomes especially evident in the outro, and in one of the most simple lyrics recurring throughout the song: "I waited and waited".

Truth Be Told

OKAY. There's rather a lot of context to this song hehe.

I wrote this song in a bit of a frenzy after watching the series finale of the ITV show "Endeavour". The emotion of it all lingered after I had switched off the TV - I couldn't shake off what I had just watched. I felt this need for an outlet, otherwise I just wasn't going to be able to sleep. I opened my laptop to start writing and this is where Gracie Abrams came in.

At this time, I had recently listened to Gracie Abram's album "Good Riddance" for the first time and I was feeling really inspired by that indie, acoustic sound. Particularly with songs like "I should hate you" and "I know it won't work", I had been taken in by the sad desperation conveyed lyrically and sonically. I wanted to write a song that recreated that sensation.

Once I had opened my laptop, I spent half an hour or so furiously typing and by the end I had the bones of the song. I went back the next day and edited, shifted things around so there was more of a flow, and I was able to write a more continuous melody around that.

This is one of my favourites on the album and I owe a lot of that to Gracie Abrams, Aaron Dessner and the makers of "Endeavour" who provided the inspiration for it!

Joan

I was inspired to write this song as I was struck one day by the connotations that hands have in the English language. They are a metaphor for power, control and responsibility, as in phrases such as something being "in your hands" or to "wash your hands" of a situation. However, it occurred to me that when hands are mentioned in love songs, they usually denote romance, sensuality and tactility. These two meanings provided the inspiration for the chorus and bridge of the song, in which the symbolism of hands chops and changes between romantic ("in my hair, on my waist") and a dangerous sense of control ("your hands held me down"). 

It was after writing the chorus, and specifically the lines about being held underwater, that I wrote the rest of the song using imagery of water and the ocean. I think I've always had a bit of a fascination with the ocean and I've found it to be a really rich source of imagery while songwriting. I love the way it can be both frightening and calming, in the same way that hands can be threatening or comforting.

The themes of power and responsibility crops up again in lyrics such as "well, I guess it's my fault after all", "I should have known" and "my head tells my beaten heart, "well, I told you so"". In amongst all the blame being placed on the other person, there is also blame put on the self. They are acknowledging that they had the power to put a stop to it and prevent the situation from becoming so bad, but repeatedly chose not to because their heart wanted to believe the best in the other person. They didn't utilise the power that was in their hands.

The Deep

This is possibly the most "daydream-y" song on the album, in that the whole basis of the song is about wondering what it must be like to be in love.

Back in 2020, I was walking up a hill and when I turned round to look at the view, I saw a couple sitting on a picnic blanket admiring the view along with me.  I just remember thinking they looked very at home with each other, and they were doing all kinds of cutesy couple stuff. Like when one of them stood up to leave and the other pulled them back down into a hug. 

I was immediately inspired to write about them from my perspective as an outsider looking in. The song evolved into expressing a desire to feel seen that I think is more common than many would care to admit. Doing so would likely come with a feeling of guilt at the implication that you need a romantic partner to feel "whole". I don't believe this is the case but that belief can coexist with occasional feelings of loneliness - the two are not mutually exclusive. 

And yes, I did deliberately put this song as track two hehe.

For Two

This is the first song on Daydreams. Rather fitting considering it contains the phrase that inspired the album title: "we meet again in daydreams."

The idea for this song stemmed from me being struck by the strangeness of breakups. Out of the blue, it occurred to me how *weird* the idea was of knowing someone so intimately and completely at one time in your life and then in a matter of months, weeks, days, you can find yourself acting like strangers. Your lives which were once so intertwined are now so apart, as though the time you spent together never even happened. But it DID happen - because, like or not, you're still carrying around everything you knew about that person and vice versa. You may be acting like strangers but you're really, really not.

While writing this song, I was intentional about not placing blame on anyone. This was not written as a "I'm-heartbroken-after-what-you-did-to-me" breakup song, nor as a "I'm-sorry-for-what-I-did-to-you" breakup song. I was careful that there was no indication anywhere in the lyrics as to what caused the breakup. Instead, I wanted the focus to be solely on living and dealing with the memories after it happened.

The songs on Daydreams range from being written several years to several months ago - however, I consider writing TWOY (in 2020) to be the true beginning of the album. Until this point, I had only ever written songs as individual pieces of work, rather than as contributions to a project. But with this one, I really felt like it belonged on an album, like it was one jigsaw piece belonging to a bigger picture.

This song also acted as proof to myself that I could write something where I was equally proud of the melody AND the lyrics, something which I had previously struggled to accomplish. I could so clearly hear the song as I was writing, I just knew what it was meant to sound like. So it was an easy choice to start the process of recording and producing the album. Listening back to it, you can definitely tell it was my first time using GarageBand lol but I've grown fond of its imperfections in a way :))

The Weight of You

This song kind of poured out of me towards the end of last year. I hadn't written anything in a while, and certainly not anything to completion, when suddenly I had three song ideas within the space of so many days and this was one of them. 

I was playing around with guitar chords and began singing the melody of what ended up being the chorus. Most of it was incoherent murmuring as I fumbled around for the tune but I found myself singing "if I hate you..." at the start of each phrase. I started wondering what I could write a song about that would contain those lyrics. This prompted me to think about the concept of willing yourself to hate someone almost in order to survive, because hating them means you stand a chance of moving on. You almost wish they had done something awful to you, screwed you over in some way because then you wouldn't miss them. You could look back at them with relief that they're no longer in your life. But in reality, you look back and you miss them. You wish you could be filled with red, burning, hot anger because that feels preferable to the dull, blue ache that currently consumes you. You feel like a ghost - at least rage would make you feel alive. 

Once I knew that this is what the song would centre around, I started thinking of different ways to present this idea. The verses list all the things that the persona could do, if they only hated the person they are singing to. The lyrics almost act as continuations of the song title: "if I hate you...I could face the walk down Union Street, go out with my friends to parties etc.". The chorus expands on this, explaining the persona's fear that if they gave into their sadness and faced the truth about how this person really treated them, they don't think they could ever love again - nothing else would compare. After a post-chorus climax, the song quiets to a sad admission that the persona cannot bring themselves to be angry with the person they are singing about because they just don't deserve it. This is "the truth" they have been afraid of facing: that this person was truly good, a light in their life and now they're gone.
 
It's unusual for me to start with chords when I'm writing a song - usually I'll be inspired by an idea for a lyric or piece of melody first, then putting chords to that will drive me to write the rest of it. However, after making this song, perhaps this will change. 

At times, this song is in danger of glorifying anger, bitterness and resentment and presents these as positive, desirable emotions - it should be noted that this was not the intention. I just thought this was an interesting facet of emotion to explore, especially because I think the temptation to think of the negatives of something or someone once they're gone to ease the loss is a relatable thing. This song takes those usually fleeting moments and indulges in them, taking them to their extremes.

If I Hate You

Trio de guitares classiques hors format - 11 cordes en quarts de tons, 8 cordes avec capteur de bruit, 6 cordes avec objets.

5 trio 5 master ok

Trio de guitares classiques hors format (11 cordes en quarts de tons, 8 cordes avec capteur de bruit, 6 cordes avec objets).

3 trio 4 master ok

At the end of October, my friend Mark Fisher sent this song to me, asking if I wanted to do anything with it; I liked it and performed a sort of rebuilding of it, which he didn't seem to mind. I also tried recording it with a different tune, as Tastes Like Winter [version], which is also available on this page.

There’s something the matter with you
These mornings I’m feeling it too
The longer the night times the more we’ve been starting to stew

I don’t want to say this out loud
It’s nothing that makes me feel proud
But hunger for daylight has put us both under a cloud

But it tastes like winter
It tastes like winter
When you’ve gone outside

It’s clear that we’re feeling depressed
No sunlight, no joy and no rest
Both of us feeling the other one’s not at their best

Should we admit we are trapped
Lethargic and energy sapped
Feeling like we are two presents that no one’s unwrapped

But it tastes like winter
It tastes like winter
When you’ve gone outside

And it’s not like winter 
Not quite like winter 
Until you’ve gone outside

Without you the silence, 
Despite my defiance is 
Something like violence 
When you’ve gone outside

And it tastes like winter
It tastes like winter
When you’ve gone outside

And it tastes like winter
It tastes like winter
When you’ve gone outside

Come in from the cold 
Come in from the cold!

Tastes Like Winter (when you’ve gone outside)

Ridiculously under-publicised due to lack of effort on his part, and criminally under-listened to due to lack of effort on everybody else's part, Boy:48 is an Edinburgh 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 graphic designer and married father of two who likes to write, make, record, produce and publish music when he can. His SoundCloud page has over 250 tracks on it, dating from ancient lo-fi tape demos from 1988, to regular releases as they are finished, at the rate of one or two a month. Thirteenth collection of demo's, 'Scatterling', released in December 2015, followed by double-collection Matryoshka (late 2017) and Krokodyl (early 2018). There followed a period of fulsome activity resulting in the OZALID and Dream, Daedalus albums, and while beginning his Sleepshow collection, lockdown struck and he walloped 26 tracks in just 6 months - one a week, resulting in much slapdash work. 2021 saw a return to normal with the completion of Sleepshow in March, and Ink Traps in December. 2022 saw his collection FASH completed, and its follow-up, DWAM, was completed in the second half of 2023. 2024 has served up seventeen new tracks, which are bundled in the collection, Charivari, which was released January 2025. Be advised that all the stuff is demo's - that means they are there to showcase, or give an impression of, what a piece could sound like. But they've not been done by professionals, nor in ideal recording conditions, so all sorts of qualities, details, dynamics etc. will not be the best possible. So think of them as worked-up sketches, rather than studio-made productions. All of them are AMDG - Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam: To the Greater Glory of God.

Tastes Like Winter (when you’ve gone outside)

Boy:48

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