You can hear the song here.
Songwriting is rarely a linear process. Sometimes, a song comes together in a flash of inspiration, but more often than not, it’s a patchwork of ideas, phrases, and emotions collected over years sometimes even decades. That was the case with “Pretending,” a song that took shape over nearly two decades, borrowing from past writing sessions, abandoned drafts, and moments of lyrical clarity along the way.
The Music Came First
Unlike some songs that start with a lyric or a melody, “Pretending” was initially just music. The first draft of the instrumental was recorded as a voice memo on February 19, 2024, with no lyrics or vocal melodies in mind. The following day, I started tracking it in my studio, still unsure of where it would lead. But once the music was in place, I knew it was time to dig into my notebooks, old song drafts, and lyrical ideas to find the words that would fit.
Revisiting the Past
I keep extensive lyrical journals, pages filled with lines, concepts, and unfinished thoughts from years of writing. Looking back through them, I found a writing session from December 2, 2007, which gave rise to an old song called “Aftershock”. One of its lines stood out:
“No more senseless wandering, it’s time to take back my life, I shook hands with doom and played the victim”.
It felt close to what I wanted, but not quite right. I revised it, shifting both the phrasing and the perspective:
“I shook hands with doom, played the fool.”
The change from “played the victim” to “played the fool” was deliberate. While both suggest being caught in a negative cycle, “played the fool” implies an element of self-awareness, as I recognize my own role in the situation rather than simply being a passive casualty.
Finding the Theme
While revisiting old drafts, I also found lines from a pre-chorus that had originally been part of “Aftershock”:
“Pretending, faking, the fear when I’m running, seeing, a life, contemplating.”
Something about the word “pretending” resonated with me. It wasn’t just a passing thought, it felt like the core of the song. That’s when I decided on the title: “Pretending”.
Another lyric from a January 15, 2008 session for an abandoned song called “Glitters and Gold”, provided some lines for early drafts of “Pretending”, though none of them made the final cut.
Then, on July 6, 2013, I wrote a song called “Deep Inside The Storm”, which ended up supplying the second pre-chorus. It was another reminder that even when a song doesn’t fully come to life, it can still serve a purpose years later.
Bringing It All Together
The final major breakthrough happened on June 12, 2024, when I wrote the first proper draft of a song I called “Pretending I’m Alive”. This draft provided the foundation for the first verse, shaping the direction of the song.
By November 5, 2024, the lyrics were finished. After revisiting nearly 17 years of old ideas, repurposing lyrics, and refining themes, “Pretending” had finally taken its final form.
The Takeaway
Songwriting is often about patience. Some songs arrive fully formed, while others take years to develop. “Pretending” is a song that lived in fragments across different points in my life, waiting for the right moment to come together. It’s proof that no lyric is ever truly lost, sometimes, it just takes time to find where it belongs.
Crank it up.
Free Spirits Rising 