The Man in the Sun

Embrace the warmth

This is the story of another song. 

This is a letter to the age old muse of love, joy, and dancing at golden hour. 

The song begins in August of 2022. It is born in Australia, in the heat, in the warmth of family. 

It begins with drums.

For a long time, this song was titled ‘movin’, just a word to title the project in Logic whilst I tinkered with the sound. It was, quite simply, the essence of what was forming; a drum beat and a rhythm. There isn’t much else to it. I was listening to a lot of pop music at the time, bright sunny guitars, light but punchy drums. The simplicity of it all created this kind of expression I’ve always strayed away from. I have a tendency to want to produce more complex, unpredictable and experimental types of music, but more often than not I’m reeled back in by something a lot less convoluted. Something a lot more fun.

So, on my laptop, in our queenslander AirBnB in a Brisbane suburb, I sat on the sofa during a brief pause from visiting Grandad, family and various friends in cafés and parks, and started building a very simple drum pattern. However often I try to limit the amount of layers in the drums I make, I never manage to keep it simple. I’m very obsessive when it comes to drums. I want them to sound natural, but also to have dimension and prominence. This built very quickly into something fun and buoyant. I would return to it frequently throughout our stay, playing with it. I didn’t have my guitar at this point, nor any idea of what it was I wanted to say. The lyrical and musical aspect remained distant. At this point, I was just having fun.

The kookaburras you hear at the end were recorded on my phone at our family friend’s place just outside of Brisbane. Believe me, it is one of the most gorgeous, picturesque places I’ve ever known. Full from a BBQ, tipsy after a few beers and glasses of Bundaberg and coke, enjoying a rare cigarette next to the bonfire as the sun set with a sweet violence of yellow and violet, the noisy but charming birdsong of Australia’s most infamous bird chuckled out across the valley and woodland to warm our hearts and broaden our smiles. There’s a special kind of joy in this little auditory anecdote; my dad’s gleeful chuckle at the whipbird’s crepuscular call, Kath making me and my mum laugh about the cigarette we’re smoking that she’s gone nearly ten years without. I put this here at the end of the song because it is a moment of pure warmth. Nature sings of the glory I wasn’t aware of which I was about to write. 

Music and lyrics follow nearly a year later. My partner (I’d say boyfriend, but he’s more than that) and I weren't long dating as we headed into our first summer together (as partners, I was lucky to have had a year of friendship with him prior). For once, I wasn’t heading into a summer with Lana Del Rey at the ready, preparing for a solid few months of yearning, sun, and sullenness. I had this other half of me that I never really knew how much I was missing; this daily shot of comfort, joy and support. To be honest, as my Grandad once wrote,

‘words are inadequate’

Suddenly, I was putting pen to paper (thumb to screen), but was writing from a much happier disposition. I had never written about having love, only the wanting to have it. The words evaded me, until they poured out one evening, I don’t really remember when, as they often do. 

I wrote this song as a gesture, the same way you would buy your partner or your friend a coffee, make them breakfast, gift them something they’ve always wanted, ride the train home with them, tell them a secret, or say something to make their day. Of course, I could do all of those things, but nothing really feels like an adequate repayment, for lack of a better word, for the love he has shown me.

I don’t know how to say it sufficiently

It’s all I owe him for really loving me

Guitars followed soon after, and things started to fall into place, gradually. I battled with the vocals and the melody. Originally, all the choruses were supposed to be belted, as were the verses, but it didn’t feel nor did it sound right. The music was too soft, and there I am wailing over it all. I’m all for ecstatic kinds of belting and celebrating the air you breathe by singing as loud and free as you can (as I do in the bridge, which is one of my favourite moments I’ve ever created in my music), but it needed to ebb and flow. That’s when he comes into it. 

Josh listens to everything I let him listen to. Despite wanting to keep this song as a surprise from him, he wanted to help me with what I was very vocally struggling with. His words were a calm revelation. ‘The vocals should be more breathy, sound like they’re floating on top of the rest of the song’. So simple. So clever. So, I re-recorded them all, and then layered numerous harmonies on top of that to colour in that lightness and lift it to further heights. 

The mixing took a year. It took falling in and out of love with it. Taking drums away, adding them back. Adding and removing various synths and layers, putting the vocals up higher then taking them back down. The finished product, however, is one of my favourite things I have ever created, and I don’t get to say that often.

I offer this piece of purity to you. 

I hope you can feel the embrace, lying back in the long grass, feeling the sun glow atop your eyelids. 

Love comes when we least expect it, and the warmth is ineffable, magical.

I urge you to let it in.

Bathe in the sunlight of the love that you have around you.

Perhaps in the core of that softness,

we can step

barefoot

into something happier

I have, 

And it is the greatest thing to have ever happened to me.

Thank you, Josh,

I love you 

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