Light Me Up
I'm just a shadow on my own, waitin' on the sun to light me ...
As of now, I’m using this here substack like a journal. No serious editing. Just ramblin’ on, stream-of-consciousness reflections on the songs that make up Sunburned. Enjoy!
In September of 2020 we went to Lake Louisa, about 30-40 minutes outside of Charlottesville VA. We went to write and demo and dive deeper on Sunburned. Me, Jake, and longtime collaborator and engineer Danny Gibney. I’d been experimenting with a process of repeat-streaming certain movies while writing songs. There’s a song that didn’t make the album called Hit Me Harder which was heavily influenced by the boxing movie ‘Million Dollar Baby.’ Closer was drawn from one of my favorite movies ‘Y Tu Mama Tambien.’ Another song called Montauk came out of ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.’ Montauk also didn’t make the album. Here are the demos for Montauk and Hit Me Harder.
Then after a few days of writing we invited Dogwood Tales to come over for a hang and to show them what we were working on. Jake went to meet them near the neighborhood entrance to bring them to the lake house. So Danny Gibney and I hit the deep catacombs of Youtube. Danny is great on YouTube.
Danny and I both share an open love of the first Third Eye Blind record. I was 7 when it came out and I remember going to Record and Tape Traders in Towson MD and buying the self-titled CD. I actually know the first three 3EB records quite well as I uploaded all of them to Xbox and used to listen to them while playing Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1-7 and Underground. Gibney only knows the first album and therefore cannot claim the same die-hard status that I can, a point of contention between us. After our LP1 album release shows at the Golden Pony in October of 2019, there was a Halloween cover band set at Crayola (local DIY punk house) afterwards. We finished loading out at the Pony and rushed to Crayola to catch Danny and Yasir and a few other killer musicians do their 3EB tribute set. Yasir let me join him on lead vocals for Loosing a Whole Year. Thank You Yasir!!
So anyways Danny and I start talking about Third Eye Blind and all the great guitar work on the first album by Kevin Cadogan, who left the band during the second record. Kevin is the reason that first record is so great. He’s one of those brilliantly aware guitarists that can make pop-rock sound really rich. So Danny pulls up this video of all these ex-members of Third Eye Blind. There are enough Ex-members of the band that they have their own version of Third Eye Blind without Stephan Jenkins (Frontman) called XEB. And so we watch some live XEB performance from Jammin Java in Vienna VA, and then Danny shows me the tuning used on “Narcolepsy” and “Graduate.” It’s a simple variation on Open D where the high string is tuned to E, not D, therefore making it an Open D add9 tuning. But I just call it XEB.
“Light Me UP,” “Closer,” and “Luckiest Man Alive” are all in this tuning. I really love it. I’m working on several more songs in this tuning at the moment. Try it out. D A D F# A E. My Jazzmaster and Strat live in this tuning.
The Louisa session finished and I went home to keep writing. In the fall of 2020 I started working on the demo for Light Me Up. Just a little riff and some doo-doo-doo-doo-doos. I bought a cool Russian Big Muff from Wonder Records and I was using that for the distortion on the chorus. I was building my backyard studio while writing Light Me Up. Here’s a video of me dancing with 2x4s in my half-finished studio to my original demo.
The lyrical spark for the song was so simple. I’m amazed at how quickly we can change emotional states due to exterior circumstances. Let me explain. I’m doing my thing one morning, having one of those days where shit is piling up. And I’m feeling burnt out and uninspired and xyz. And it’s cloudy and rainy. And then the storm passes, and I walk outside and stand in the sun, and I instantly feel amazing. All the bullshit subsides and my day turns around in an instant. And I just find that to be hilarious. Is it that simple? Is that really all I needed? Some days, yes.
My one regret with Light Me Up from a lyrical standpoint is that, I feel like the pre-chorus lines are a cool set-up for the chorus, but I don’t think I really glued them together as well as I hoped. “I’m just a shadow on my own, waiting on the sun to light me up.” And “A shadow shaking in your hand, waiting on the sun to light me up.” I love the shadow / sun bit. Not sure if that was nailed. Eh. Whatever.
But it’s connected to my love of modern psychology, which is probably the most uncool element of my writing, but is something I care deeply about. As with the Red Book (see the Hellraiser write-up in a couple weeks) I read another book in 2021 by Jungian Pyschoanalyst Robert Johnson called “Owning Your Own Shadow; Understanding the Dark Side of Psyche.” It’s a very small book and a quick read, but damn it’s packed with insight on shadow-work. It’s so good!!! Highly recommend to anyone that is into that sort of thing.
It’s all about bringing the dark and unconscious elements of your psyche into your conscious awareness, and finding healthy ways to express those things. Most of us go about our day finding unhealthy and often painful ways of expressing these rejected parts of our psyche. It doesn’t have to be this way. And thus, this is what I have devoted my art to for the foreseeable future. Trying to express and give voice to the hidden and rejected parts of my own self (my shadow), and hoping that in doing so, I can healthily integrate and transform these parts of my being, while creating something beautiful.
Not sure if we loose people on the bridge, but I like having a 6/8 time signature change for that heavy part. It’s an awkward little riff, but it feels very naturals to my fingers. Light Me Up is basically a big reflection of missing home, loosing yourself, and needing something or someone to get you back to square one. We recorded a version of Light Me Up with producer Jay Joyce that had some cool elements, but it was slow and ultimately I prefer our final version. Our session with Jay was rushed and we didn’t get to dive deep with him. He’s a cool dude though. Here’s that demo and a video from his studio - Neon Cross.
The Montrose session for the song was great. Very much a live thing. The lyrics weren’t finished after the Montrose session, so Danny Gibney and I recorded the lead vocals and some BGVs at my home studio. Jake recorded a really cool hook after chorus 1, it’s a modulated and hard-tuned vocal thang, but it sounds like a synth. Very rad.
For the music video we decided to do something different and collectively focused. With a days notice we threw a house show at Crayola in Harrisonburg and put the word out. Kyle Grim and Jake Golibart, alongside Zach Williams, Matt Marinello, Travis Legg, Kristin Lewis, Sarah Gorman, and a bunch of other folks really made the video shine. We basically said that we wanted to showcase the scene and a place where we’ve played and watched countless shows. Loads of people came out and I love the video. We played the record in it’s entirety straight through that night. Everyone in Harrisonburg got to see the album first, raw and sweaty. Then we shot a few extra scenes in Keezletown at Erich Schneller’s house one morning in the rain.
A couple months ago we played it in Charlottesville VA at the Jefferson Theatre. Getting to yell “VIRGINIA, CARRY ME” into a room of 900 Virginians felt like the right way to kick off this new chapter. You can listen to Light Me Up and all of Sunburned here.
After all I’ve said and done
What the hell have I become?
Virginia, carry me
Take me back home
Back east
The world is turnin’
It’s upside down
And I’m a stranger to myself
I can’t shut up
I can’t sleep
There’s no silence
Inside of me
Another nightmare
Another ghost
I’m just a shadow on my own
Waiting on the sun to light me up
Waiting on the sun to light me up
Waiting on someone to light me up
Waiting on someone
My prayer is simple
These days
Please have mercy
And look away
I’m sick of sadness
I’m sick of pain
I need some sug ar in my veins
Hallelujah
Hell yes
I’m one step closer
Then I regress
A bitter dream
A bitter man
A shadow shaking in your hands
Waiting on the sun to light me up
Waiting on the sun to light me up
Waiting on someone to light me up
Waiting on someone
Waiting on the sun to light me up
Waiting on the sun to light me up
Light me up
Waiting on someone
Really dig these back stories and demos and dance videos. 🌅☀️💛☀️🌅
Sunburned is an amazing record. Thank you for letting us into your process here, it unlocks another layer to the music.