at the time that i wrote "i wish," i had been in different songwriting sessions everyday with different producers and different writers in LA....despite writing tons of songs i remember feeling that everything i wrote felt devoid of any kind of real feeling or meaning. i knew i had something to say, but i felt like my music wasn't saying anything at all. it felt derivative. and tbh kinda soulless.
but something changed last july when my best friend and co-writer eva had told me about a producer she had recently worked with named chris. she had said he was really talented and might be a great fit for my project. despite being exhausted by the LA songwriting culture, i trusted her. and we booked a week to work together.
the drive to chris' house is a long one. it's about 30-45 minutes away from where eva and i live, so we treated the ride there like a roadtrip. we picked up diet cokes and clif bars on the way, queued up a playlist full of ethel cain and sylvan esso, and hopped on the highway.
i remember pulling up to chris' house in the valley, completely unaware of what i wanted to make. all i knew is that he had a really cute dog named bowie. and that i didn't want to start with a reference or a lyric or a concept that day, i just wanted to see what flowed out of us. so, chris laid down a synth line, and eva and i began to freestyle melodies.
eva and i each went back and forth on the mic, word vomiting whatever ideas popped into our heads. eventually, i spat out a monotoned melody paired with a very conversational lyric, "i guess i wish that you loved me, the way that i loved you, the way that i wanted."
i remember turning to eva and saying, "i weirdly love that line so much, but we can't use it. it's too simple." she looked at me like i was insane and said, "girl, it's not too simple. it's fucking awesome." so we kept it.
we wrote the rest of the hook in a few minutes. eva dropping in genius, poetic descriptors like "decorative garbage" to complement the very literal nature of the rest of the hook's lyrics. and in about an hour, we had the shell of a song.
this is a voice memo of the first recording i ever did of the chorus. in hindsight, it's pretty crazy to think that the song really didn't change much. we kept this melody, almost all of the lyrics, and chris' iconic synth line (which ended up anchoring the entire track). we even kept the ad lib that i did in this take and turned it into the post chorus.
i remember this day so vividly. because for the first time in a long time, i didn't feel like what i was making was soulless. in fact, i felt the complete opposite. it was full of heart. in a way that was so visceral. so raw. and so real.
we listened to this voice memo the entire drive back from the valley. i was glad it was a long ride home.
sam xx
