“Promise to always dream” 🌙 New song “Fight for Life” out now 🎸

Hey there,

You know how the old saying goes, “I wish I knew then what I know now.” Well, to that I’ll add: “I wish I feel now what I felt then.” This will make sense in a bit.

“Fight for Life” is another ‘different’ Greyfade song. It’s a song about reflection. It’s a song about fighting for your dreams. It’s a song about fighting for what’s rightfully yours: your life. A little less heavy than some of my previous releases, taking on more of a rock and alternative feel, it’s available on all platforms here.

I like to recollect how a song came to life (pun intended) because it gives you (and I) a perspective on its journey of becoming a full song and delivering the message and impact it is meant to do.

I’m a firm believer that songs write themselves and we, as artists, are just vehicles to see them through their journey into becoming full songs. Every song that I write ascertains that more and more. Just like children, their parents nourish them, feed them, take care of them but children mold and form their characters on their own and into becoming the adults that they will be. Side note, I used the child/adult analogy because I will come to it later on in the story and, no, Mom, my paternal instincts are not kicking in :)

This song was written very recently and was completed a week before entering the studio. Now, even though I remember riffs that I wrote in the 90’s and, for “Fight for Life”, I demoed everything on my phone prior to entering the studio, I actually completely forgot that I had written a different intro for the song prior to the one you hear on the track. A couple of weeks ago, while I was going through some song ideas on my phone, I found that missing intro. I guess it was just not meant to be. This song WANTED to start in this way.

For the vocal melody, I used the James Hetfield (of Metallica fame) method in creating it. In a lot of Metallica’s demoes James basically sings anything that comes to mind to create the vocal melody of the song and later fills these “things” that came out of his mouth with words.

So I basically did the same, I was humming incoherent words along with the music to come up with the melody. What is interesting here is that, along with the gibberish I was humming, the “we dreamt of stars / we run so far / we walked on clouds / we shined so bright” parts just poured out of my mouth unknowingly. Every time I played the song, those words just came out again and again and again and when I wanted to write the lyrics for the song. They were the first things that I wrote on paper and they formed the pillars of the song. The song WANTED to have those words in it.

Musically, this song has a retro-modern sound (if that makes any sense). It has a very “70’s” feel while, at least to my ears, sounding very fresh and modern. I always joke around and say that I want to write a blues record. Musically, this is “Bluesfade” 2021 😎

As I mentioned earlier, when I wanted to write the lyrics for the song, the aforementioned four lines (“we dreamt of stars…”) were the first things to write. Then I closed my eyes, thought about my adolescent years, how the world seemed so big and beautiful and I was ready to dive all in and conquer it. That teen spirit where nothing is impossible and nothing can stop you. (Here is the adolescent thing I hinted to earlier). Flashbacks of distant laughters and group hugs came to my mind (similar to those you see in the movies, think graduation night/summer vacation teen movies) feeling like you’re on top of the world, like “walking on clouds”, unbeknownst that things will go awry…. and herein lies the twist.

Now, if this song was written 4 years back for my “Hopeless… Aimless… Soulless” record (for those who haven’t heard that record yet, well, you can tell by the title that it is a very hopeful and cheerful record… [Insert Borat’s NOT here]) things would turn into a big and messy clusterf**k.

But, this is Greyfade (Bluesfade 😉) 2021. I wanted the song, or I’d rather say, the song WANTED to have a hopeful message which basically is that life will be hard but “remember that oath” that you took when you were young; Nothing is impossible and nothing is unattainable. And if you're still young, MEMORIZE that oath and hold on to your teen spirit. Fight for your life, “Promise to always dream, Promise to fight and win” and let nothing hold you back. Let nothing crush your spirit.

Each one of us has had or will have setbacks on a personal or a global level. Covid-19 has changed the way we live. Many people lost their jobs or worse, loved ones. Many people are facing cash flow problems. Children have been locked in their houses. Teens aren’t able to go to concerts or beaches or parties and have fun. People are not able to travel. Many people have been distant from loved ones and haven’t seen them for more than a year. Families are broken apart. Relationships are destroyed. Dreams are shattered. Everyday, on the news we hear of a disaster hitting a country somewhere. Despots stealing from their people. Poverty killing millions. War. Disease. Global warming. An uprising…. The point is the world has had, does have and will always have problems. “It will always bring you down”. So you should get back up and “Fight for Life”!

In the last verse, I imagined myself on my deathbed (hopefully many, many years from now) slipping into eternal sleep with a smile on my face knowing that I achieved all that I have set my mind to achieve and I have fought for what's rightfully mine: my life.

Hopefully we will all be blessed with that feeling towards the end.

Listen to “Fight for Life” here.

And please share it with anyone you think would find the message behind the song to be helpful.

Best,

Greyfade