by jakson
I am jakson.
jakson is a musical project by me, jakson.
It first began in 2019 with the release of ‘guilt.’ There have been three releases since.
The latest release, ‘too artsy for the footy kids, too footy for the art ones,’ was released in February 2023.
It was written and recorded in my bedroom as I moved across Melbourne, Bendigo, and Canberra over the last three years. Its title comes from a line in its second song, ‘michael cera, serotonin.’ It references how I fit in socially, growing up in a country town with an interest in sports and art.
Listen to the song while reading the text.
The song ‘some things stop, some things don’t’ was written during the lockdown.
The line ‘junkies junk’ had been in the void of my iPhone notes for a long time. I probably jotted it down after reading it in a poem or something. As an exercise in writing, I wrote as many lines with that structure as possible and left it there, sitting on my notes app as a fun little exercise.
Then the melody came to me first. I went through my lyric bank to find lines that suited it before deciding on the ‘junkies junk’ motif.
At this stage, I had a melody and a bunch of unrelated lines without meaning. I needed to form these abstract, unrelated lines into a cohesive idea.
The lyrical concept was loosely based on an observation during the lockdown. I was still working nights in a restaurant doing deliveries. There was no one around except for us and a few creepy-looking characters. I took this observation and exaggerated it into the ‘some things stop, some things don’t’ idea. Like the rest of the world was on pause, but all these creepy and grim things kept happening. I edited the lines, removing ones that didn’t match the idea, and added rhymes where I could.
Having the melody and the lyrics, I found the chord progression next, landing on a simple 1 6 4 5 progression. I tried playing around with it and making it more complex harmonically and rhythmically but ended up staying pretty much how it was originally written.
I recorded some straight-strummed guitars, then some finger-picked guitars, added a drum machine and some extra vocal takes, then sent it to Liam to add some keys, mix, and master it.
That’s how the song arrived where it is now.
I hope you enjoy.
Bandcamp
SoundCloud
Instagram
Facebook