This song that has melancholic feeling, painting a picture of someone longing for something or someone. It draws inspiration from pop and hyperpop songs, utilizing a singing vocal tone.

Before freestyling, I started creating the beat based on an electric piano sample found on “Splice”, a subscription-based sample service allowing for free use indefinitely after a monthly payment (Splice, n.d.). The sample immediately inspired me, choosing to not alter the sample in any way, as I enjoyed the tempo and sound it already had. I placed a clap on the second and fourth beat, establishing a base rhythm. I tend to do this in order to better feel the beat I envision. While listening to the sample and clap, I started browsing my 808s, and while doing so I felt that I wanted a soft 808 without a hard impact. I found an 808 that I felt fit this role and immediately started playing a base line. Once I finished the base line, I added more percussion. I added two more claps, creating a bouncy feeling. I often bob my head or move my body to the beat to feel the beat and where I want the percussion, something Vijay Iyer specifically mentioned as part of rhythm perception and production (Iyer, 2004, p. 396). I finished quite quickly as I was itching to test the melodic ideas I had been thinking of.

When freestyling, I tested a few melodies and sang a very intriguing melody while saying the word “kisses”. When listening back to the freestyle, it was this section I was most gravitated towards, and decided to utilize “kisses” as the theme of my hook. I cannot put into words what made me gravitate towards these specific sections; I see it as an instance of phenomenal tacit knowledge, a feeling that allowed me to instinctively pluck out and identify the stronger parts (Polanyi, 1983, p. 11). While freestyling, I felt the beat was quite sad, and that I had reflected this in my voice. 

When rewriting the song, I immediately started with the line “og jeg sender hun et slengkyss”. This was the only line I felt fit, as there is no other way of saying “blow you a kiss” in Norwegian. “Slengkyss” being a kind of kiss that is blow at someone from a distance. However, it got quite difficult to rhyme after picking this line, leading to a lot of creative work arounds. For instance, the line “she’s been getting all my wishes” was rewritten as “fikk mine drømmer på en ny kyst”, translating to “she got my dreams on a new coast”. To me this created a more vivid image. I also got stuck on the bar “It be my words that always misses”. However, after pondering for a bit, I ended up on “brukte ordene feil jeg skulle holdt tyst” translating to “used my words wrong I should have kept quiet”, although I needed to change the flow slightly, adding a pickup in order to fit all the words. I felt I solved this line very nicely, maybe even preferring the flow in the new version. I would not have found these flows and rhymes were it not for my impulsive first choice, which lead to the subsequent lines. This way of working is based around my own intuition, also mentioned by Henk Borgdorff as an integral part of artistic research (Borgdorff, 2012, p. 166), and could also be seen as a part of my tacit knowledge. 

This also happened when rewriting the bar “I’ve been dying in my missions” turning to the word “utrykk”, a term used for expeditions, especially in the military. Some of the grammar I chose when rewriting is wrong, but I had to break some language rules to get the right words to fit. For instance, “og på avstand, kommer altid sist” rewritten from “now they leaving me at distance”, doesn't quite feel like something one would say in casual speech. However, I tend to break grammar rules in English as well in order to best fit the flow I'm looking for. It feels both limiting and freeing working this way, as I have to adhere to the message and story written earlier. However, this approach leaves me free to break the rules of language in order to get a semblance of the story in the rewritten song.

I wrote the hook bar for bar, punching in each sentence separately. I tend to prefer this over writing my lyrics before recording, as I feel it preserves some of the experimental and spontaneous elements found in freestyling while allowing for corrections and alterations later. This approach aligns with what Henk Borgdorff states as experimentation within artistic research (Borgdorff, 2012, p. 165). While writing, I wanted to convey the sad feeling I had felt in the beat when freestyling, so I sang with what I would best describe as a sincere and airy voice. After writing the hook, I quickly freestyled a verse. After that I was quite tired so I called it a day, and put the song away. At a later date, I reopened the song and continued my writing process. I felt that I hadn’t quite managed to perform the hook to the degree I wanted, so I started rerecording the hook. I changed one line that I felt didn’t fit the song, changing “she could never compare to bitches” to “I never thought it would be so vicious”. I then proceeded to write the verse that followed the hook, attempting to ease the new flow inn by writing the first bars of the verse with a similar flow to the hook. I felt the verse needed an even more impactful delivery, and changed the tone of my voice to more similarly resemble crying. This also relates to the first line in the flow change, which is “so I cry yeah”. At the end of the verse, I began changing my delivery back to the same delivery as the hook, in order to not cause an abrupt change in tone. 

5.1.1. Creation phase

5.1. Speed Plug

Freestyle:

Norwegian without drums:

Norwegian with drums:

English without drums:

English with drums:

5.1.3. Rewriting phase

5.1.2. Writing phase