Emotional songwriting with Gilbert Neal

This week, Gilbert Neal joined us again to talk about his latest album, and how he had to dig deep into himself to write the songs. We feature and talk about his new single Vapor Girl.

Now, in the wake of a pandemic that waxes and wanes but never quite vacates, Neal delivers the provocative and bitingly personal I’ll See You When I See You, an obliquely passionate salvo that feels alien yet warmly familiar. On one level, it maps the dissolution of a (virtual? long-distance?) romantic entanglement. On another, it explores the mystery and dread suddenly framing the global perception of Russian culture.

We talked about:

• Rick Beato’s first podcast video: A Warning On the Future of Music: with Author Ted Gioia
• Softening deep painful emotions through metaphors
• Writing nursey rhyme melodies over chord progressions with lots of key changes
• Writing a song around the whole tone scale
• Writing with a balance between complexity (scales, modulations, big words) and simplicity (melodies, rhymes)
• Reusing melodies in different keys and with different instruments

Download the lyrics to Vapor Girl to follow along.