"Barely" missing the chance to record with a Grammy winner: Part II
Here's the rest of the story of how I barely missed out on getting a song I cowrote over a 25 hour period recorded by a Grammy-winning producer at PWI.
June 18, 2014 (continued from the last post)
4:34 p.m. The general session is over. I meet with the rest of the group to make sure everyone is going to the right place.
4:50 p.m. Waiting to play our song. There’s a beautiful ballad being sung in the room. I feel good about our song. The competitive side of me is confident: whenever there is something to be won, I enter a focused mode of self-affirmation in which failure is not an option.
4:55 p.m. Performance. I sing the first line of the chorus as it was in a previous iteration. Despite a confused look from Angela, I get back on track quickly and no harm is done.
4:56 p.m. We get to the second chorus when Mark Woodward (composer and keyboardist) hurries to the keyboard in the room and starts playing along. He seems to be loving it. Oh yeah. We got this.
4:58 p.m. Jonathan Lee and Mark Woodward both like the song. They disagree about the bridge: Mark seems to like it a lot, but wants more lyrics to it. Jonathan feels that it’s the weak link of the song, but it’s fixable with some tweaking. Certainly, it won’t prevent us from getting it to the studio. Right?
5:03 p.m. Waiting in the hallway for the other groups to finish. Some of the gals and I start working on more lyrics to expand the bridge.
5:15 p.m. Jonathan calls all the groups back into the room to tell us the top three.
5:16 p.m. Jonathan dragging it out...come on! Rip off the Band-Aid!
5:17 p.m. Jonathan praying...
5:18 p.m. First group announced. Not us. Second group announced. Not us. Third group...we made it!
5:20 p.m. We have 40 minutes until we play our song again for Mark Heimermann. Guess we’ll get dinner.
5:50 p.m. Dinner is done and now we play...the waiting game.
6:00 p.m. No Mark Heimermann yet.
6:10 p.m. Jeff Deyo is here to let us know that Mark is in traffic and will be another 10 minutes.
6:15 p.m. Hannah shows us her Nexus card that allows here to shop at a Canadian Wal-Mart.
6:20 p.m. Mark’s here. We all head toward a room. I am staying away from the entrance, hoping we get to go last. I don’t know what the other two songs sound like, but if they aren’t uptempo, we will blow them away. There's so much energy in our song.
6:27 p.m. We get to meet Mark. He seems genuinely happy to be meeting another Marc (me). I point out the spelling difference, but it does not diminish his enthusiasm.
6:28 p.m. Let’s play!
6:31 p.m. We nailed it. Mark was really glad that it was uptempo. It was the best performance we’ve done so far. I can’t believe I like this song so much. Whatever happens, I am sharing it at my church this Sunday. Time to go wait for his decision.
6:33 p.m. Mark comes out of the room. He tells the first group that their chorus is pretty weak and needs a lot of work. He says something surprisingly critical of the second group—something about their musical range, I think. It doesn’t sound mean, but very matter-of-fact. I'm feeling good about our chances. Save the best for last, right?
6:34 p.m. Mark tells us that he really liked the bridge of our song and reiterates the freshness of an uptempo song. Unfortunately, the chorus was pretty “camp-y.” Not like the word, campy, but like a song that would be sung at camp. That’s fixable in the studio, right?
6:34 p.m. Mark is looking down at his smartphone. It doesn’t seem like he’s made a decision yet. Should I say something? Would it help? Would it hurt? Would it be petty? Maybe he’s just figuring out how to break it to those who don’t get picked, although he kind of did that already.
6:35 p.m. Mark "barely" chooses the first group. Wait, what? Now he’s saying a lot of stuff that I’m just not hearing. It’s like a big mute button has been pressed. I see his mouth moving, but there’s no sound. This is not what was supposed to happen. He didn’t like their chorus!
6:36 p.m. He used the word "barely." We were so close!
6:37 p.m. Let's go walk the streets of Minneapolis for a bit.
7:06 p.m. We find a CVS on 9th Ave and Portland. I'm drowning my sorrow in a roll of SweetTarts, thank you very much.
7:08 p.m. Those were good SweetTarts.
9:04 p.m. It's good to be home and see the wife. Time to relax for a bit, then bed time.
11:13 p.m. Time to check the ol' Internet before getting ready for bed. Hmm...what did that Mark Heimermann do again? Let’s check Wikipedia.
11:14 p.m. Hmm...why did I check Wikipedia? Was it possibly able to make me feel any better about this? SMH. I was so close to working with the man who produced one of the most influential songs in Christian music in the last 30 years. SO CLOSE.
June 19, 2014
As I reflect on the past two days, here’s what I know:
It stings. It still stings. It probably will sting for a while. But that’s not a bad thing. The song won’t get recorded (at least not yet), but it’s still there. The song doesn’t cease to be. The memories of fantastic Christian musicians hearing the song and loving it (at least parts of it) are indelible: Jonathan Lee eagerly grabbing my guitar to work the verse, Mark Woodward jumping to the keyboard to play along, Jeff Deyo bouncing up and down, and Rick Barron bobbing his head.
I collaborated for the first time. It was uncomfortable, scary, and challenging, but worth it. I ate my share of humble pie, but also came away with a song that was better than the sum of its parts. By my count, at least 10 people contributed toward making the song what it came to be. Who knows? Maybe it’s not done yet. Maybe we’ll work to de-camp the chorus and make it even better.
Whatever happens, an incredible whirlwind experience has come to an end. The good and the bad, the joy and the hurt, it was what it was and now it is what it is. I’m not happy with the outcome, but I'm ready to keep moving. God will use it to shape me, because it is part of me now...along with so many memories and some new friends.