somewhere in L.A stressed and heartbroken in the corner of a sparsely populated library, I sat staring at my laptop failing to hide myself from the intrusive post-breakup thoughts that attacked my mind. you know those — “who is she out with right now?”, “how can I make this right?”, “I’m a mad good dude, what the fuck did I do wrong?” type thoughts that are like a sledgehammer to your brain. ones that give you that unescapable doom feeling in your stomach.
(well, at least for me it’s like that).
there was so much other shit going on in my life that making a sad song was honestly out of the question, like, my male pride was still in full flex so tears weren’t possible yet. I instead swung violently between “fuck everybody” and “party my life away” hence why this track was born. So there I sat with my bluetooth Playstation gold headphones on and likely a little cooked from my “Select” brand wax pen just scrolling through the sample library I had on hand on my brand new $4,000 ThinkPad. You couldn’t separate me from that thing (no literally, I went to clubs nightly with that thing in my backpack) The first two samples that stood out were the main synth piano (the dunn-dunn-dun-dunnnn, and yes, that is a sample I pitched down. it would have been easy to play but I loved the sample) and the main housey vocal: “you—I’ll give. you—I’ll give”.
I was listening to a lot of Tourist. I just LOVE his work. His Tonight and Patterns EP is some of the best progressive electronic music I’ve heard. I mean, perhaps the only I’ve ever cared for, and I knew I wanted to make something along those lines. I believe I was also working on some Dash Machette work which tended to be a bit “housey”, and all the afrohouse vibes I attended nightly in L.A had me in that kind of spirit. I remember sequencing the samples to taste and doing some light drums on it before calling up a buddy who lived down the block from me in K-Town. I wanted to see if I could chill at her place. She gave me the okay and I was off and up to K-Town. After shooting the shit with her, I remember setting up in her bedroom where she had a extra monitor I could hook my laptop up to. I loved her room. It was basic, but the little art on the wall, the plants and not too over bearing light that came through the side window, it just felt safe.
I lugged my Alesis 24 key VI midi keyboard around too, so I sat that up on her desk, threw my headphones on and got to work. Sure, I did a little eavesdropping on the lowkey argument that was being had between her and a then boyfriend (I think?) in her kitchen, and for whatever reason, that too inspired this track. It was like — everybody was in the state of pre-chaos even at that point. This was mid 2019 — the year before we were blindsided by the true hell flame of 2020. A lot of things were mad sus at that time but that’s another topic.
Anyway, I’m not going to lie and say it was at that point at her place that I titled the track: “Couldn’t Be Me” because perhaps I named it that at the library, I don’t know, but either way, before it was titled “Give Myself 2U” it was called “Couldn’t Be Me”. I may have spent an hour or two working on the track before my friend and I ventured to do our usual, and that was either get food or go sit and drink lots of beer (or hell, both). Memory gets a bit sparse at this point, but I’m sure I worked on the track off and on for a couple weeks before shutting it out until the top of 2020.
Like most of my work, I POUR and CONSUME it so much at one time that I can’t stand it any more. When I moved back to Atlanta from L.A in first quarter 2020, I recalled the track and was in love all over again. Feelings still rushed to me from it. I started a rough mix on it but I swear I couldn’t get it to sound like I wanted it. There’s not a ton of melodic things happening in the track, the driving force is the synth piano sample and then the bassline. It’s mostly percussion and that cool little agogo percussion that moves the track. Composition wise, it was a little bland at the time. I wanted it to feel — progressive. I didn’t want it to be super loop based, I mean, sure some parts definitely play the same phrase through almost the whole track, but I needed other elements to take your mind away from that. I added the bit at about 2:30 while in my bedroom in Atlanta. It just seemed like a perfect accent and then I split that phrase up among two different instruments. After countless mix attempts, I put it away again for what I believe was the remainder of 2020. Suddenly in 2021, I recall the track, listen to the mix and I’m like — “okay, what am I tripping about? this works!” All I really needed to do was separate the mix just a tiny bit more and then master it. That’s what I did.
What I love about the track is — from the drum pattern, to the synth piano line riding on top of that low emotional bassline, and the twinkling (dink-dink-dink-dink) — it captured all of that heartbreak, stress, and uncertainty that I felt at that time. The imaginative place that I wanted to escape to during those hard reality based times lived partitioned in my mind, and little by little I converted that information into sounds. What makes a great production for me is, when I can still recall those — peculiar spaces that my mind autonomously creates. I can’t explain these spaces, but again, I see it as its my brain taking components of things experienced within reality at specific timestamps and morphing them into neural territories. Here in 2021, the track is adherent to a lot of the high emotional landforms that were traversed just recently. Its a escapist kind of track but also a remembrance. “Give Myself 2U” is remembrance of those past lovers who I told that to, but then all I received in return was the non healed version of them, the person they told me not to worry about.
On three different occasions, I’ve inquired women singers to bless this track with some melodic light. I can hear is some Aaliyah type runs or even some Kelela type hums. I’m patiently waiting to play executive producer and direct an artist on this one. I’m not sure why neither inquiry worked, but I also don’t have the best luck getting people to comply. I would still absolutely love to cut that on this track and so moving forward, I’ll likely have a remix to this track hopefully sooner rather than later!
I hope you could enjoy this track!
- Spadey
july 31st, 2019 ~ friends room
