Guest Blog: Corusco – “Songwriting: Changing My Perspective to Find Balance”

With the latest record we released, Wake, I wanted to try a new approach to songwriting. Songs are generally just an elaborate snapshot of a moment in time. I think the best way to understand situations is to see them from different perspectives, so I thought – why not incorporate that into the lyrics? For lack of better terminology, I call them “sister-songs”

One of the first songs I wrote for this band was “Burn out Loud.” It was my way of trying to take a situation that had been devastating and try and see it from a hopeful perspective. The title track for the new record, Wake, was initially written at the same time. I used the same chord progression and shared lyrics, to show the link between the two, while telling the side of the story where all I felt was hopelessness and I was falling apart.

“Daughter” and “Stranger” were the next couple to be born. Originally called “Mammoth” (after the Wooly Mammoth Fuzz by ZVEX) and “Tucson” respectively, the lyrics were written in tandem, to tell the story of my grandfather and my mother. He was generally not a great person for most of his life, and spent his later years with the burden of regret. At the end of his life the only person by his side was my mother, and she forgave him. The songs are titled and written from each of their perspectives, to tell the whole story.

“New Year” and “Better Off” are about the two bookends of a relationship. The former is about a NYE date I went on that felt so surreal and cinematic that it sparked a fire inside of me for this girl. That fire eventually consumed me, causing me to push too hard to date her, damaging our friendship for a time. “Better Off” is the conclusion to the story – after recognizing how I had hurt someone I cared about, I had to apologize and deal with the consequences of my actions. It’s a hard pill to swallow, but I had to be realistic and honest in writing these songs.

There are two other songs on the record that don’t function as sister-songs, but they fit well within the larger overall theme of loss and hope. Writing within this structure was a lot of fun and helped me be more creative within those constraints – it’s something I’m definitely interested in continuing. Corusco has always been about finding balance and I think that the way these songs work together speaks to that core ideal.

Post from Aaron Gonzalez

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