Inside 'Stand Alone'
Song Title: Til The End Of Time
Performer: Damien Edwards
The original idea for 'Til The End Of Time' was written some time ago around 2015. The first draft of the lyric was written by Adrian and dedicated to his grand daughter. I imagined it as a walk along the beach quite 'dreamy' and 'thoughtful'. It was one of those demo's that I didn't spend a lot of time on. I originally thought of it as a song I would sing myself at some point.
Musically I wanted to put the rhythm on the piano and swap the part with the guitar. The "Supertramp" Rhodes accompanied by Stewart's 'chords wash' to give it a real 80s vibe. I renamed it 'The Gary Barlow' song when we were working on it as the chorus had a line which was very reminiscent of Gary's high range falsetto on the lines ' I will paint the rainbow in the skies' etc.
Lyrically it is probably one of our most uncomplicated songs. It's about unconditional love from parent / grandparent to child, partners, family. It was nice to do a song with no cynicism for once and the finished lyric doesn't vary much from the original draft:-
This then sat around for a while whilst we completed 'Coffin Road' with The Darkside Owls.
2017
Rollacoaster were booked to perform at one of my friends weddings and I was very involved with the organising of the whole thing. I was listening to the way Jim (dad) was talking about his speech for his daughter (Dominique) and they were talking about having a second dance after the bride and grooms. It was then that I thought back to this song and thought it would work perfectly as a gift from Jim to his daughter. Revising the lyric slightly and making it more a parent / child emphasis was relatively easy and I thought well my vocal certainly isn't going to cut it with the calibre of singers that I work with. Enter Mr Damien Edwards and well:-
Damien Studio Take
In the vocal booth
Now we had a track worth finishing! We also recorded an acoustic version of the song in one take and Damien added his own interpretation of the song which was completely 'off the cuff' and gave it a more of a classic love song vibe. This version also appears on the 'Lost Inside EP'. I added numerous vocal overdubs to create a "Bee Gees" type of feel and gave Stewart a brief of 'make it sound like 1984!' which of course, he did. We kept the backing mainly electronic and this was one of those tracks that has endless layers of keyboards. I used the Korg SV1 for the main piano parts and the Roland Jupiter 80 for the layers. It's one of my favourite synths as the programming is both relatively easy to use and so "editable" which was great for adding and removing parts. At one point I think we had eight layers and a sequencer track so it was definitely a nod to my 'Trevor Horn' upbringing where more is always more.
Damien's voice is just amazing. He approaches each session with such professionalism and in the prep get's to really understand where the song is at both emotionally and musically. Be sure to have a look at his website here: Damien Edwards Website
The song was finished in time for the wedding and Rollacoaster performed it on the night. It's great to perform your own songs live especially when this one was so personal. Jim gave Dominique a CD of the song for her to keep.
2020 Video
I've always thought the real strength of this song was the simplistic lyrics. It's an effortless listen and the vocal delivery is just stunning (a much needed improvement on my original demo). I had included it on the 'Lost Inside' EP and with March 2020 stopping us in our tracks Damien kindly offered to make a lyric video of the song. We made the video with video recordings from our mobile phones and I really like the 'homemade' approach. The feelings raised in the lyrics seem more poignant now than ever.
