I had a traumatic and very painful medical event last year that required an ambulance trip to the hospital.

As a songwriter and songwriting coach, I know that traumatic events are perfect for birthing songs for two reasons:

• First, the emotions are high and I can easily recount them later. 
• Second, writing a song and sharing it with others is my favorite way to release the trauma, to work it out.

After I recuperated from a few days in the hospital, I knew I wanted to write about it. But I thought what’s so great about a bunch of firemen helping you out of your house, putting you into an ambulance and giving you morphine? 

Then I asked myself, “What was the most emotionally painful part of all that?” 

Oh yeah. It was when I was on the bathroom floor in pain and saw that my partner Janet was starting to cry. That killed me because it made me think of what she was seeing - her “man in pieces on the floor.”

So, that was it! That little bit of co-dependent worry was the key to the song. And just like that it became a love song, and a fucked up one at that.

With the start of some very heavy lyrics I knew I didn’t want to make this a slow tempo song in a minor key (minor keys are considered sad and solemn) and depress myself and everyone who heard it.

So I did the opposite. I wrote it mostly in a major key and gave it an upbeat disco groove!

The result was the fun song Gone Down that tells a dramatic story over a dance beat.

And the juxtaposition of the traumatic lyrics to the disco groove make for an intriguing combination. I feel it changes how the song hits you. It’s now a two stage process. 

Stage 1 - “Oh. This is a fun song.”

Stage 2 - “What the fuck is he singing about?”

It’s miles away from how boringly obvious it would have been with a minor key and a slow tempo.

And there’s an extra nugget in there. The upbeat groove conveys a sense of hope in spite of the trauma. 

It points more to the love aspect of Gone Down and steers it away from being merely the retelling of a painful event.

This songwriting method of mixing downbeat lyrics with an upbeat tempo has been used successfully many times. Some examples in the indie and rock genres are Pumped Up Kicks by Foster The People and Mr Brightside by The Killers.

My song Gone Down will be on my next album, but you can listen to the demo version and download it for FREE here on my site or listen on Soundcloud for free.

Gone Down - Lyrics

Oh no not again

This can’t be happening

All pain points to hell tonight

I’m on my knees now

And I can see how

I’m gonna break your little heart tonight

Don’t want to wake you

But I’ve gotta wake you

Honey get up I’m falling apart

I’m on the floor now

It’s getting worse now

I leave it to you

I leave you my heart

I think I might be broken

On the floor in the bathroom

Honey please don’t cry right now

‘Cause I know it will kill me

To think of what you see

Your man in pieces on the floor

Gone Down

Wish I could tell you

The pain is less now

He said the morphine takes off the edge

Wish you could hear me

See I can talk now

And I can’t wait to hold you again

I think I might be broken

On the floor in the bathroom

Honey please don’t cry right now

‘Cause I know it will kill me

To think of what you see

Your man in pieces on the floor

Gone Down

I think I might be broken

On the floor in the bathroom

Honey please don’t cry right now

‘Cause I know it will kill me

To think of what you see

Your man in pieces on the floor

Gone Down

Gone Down

Music is a vibe, a vibration. It never becomes physical. That’s what makes it so special for us.

Music has been stored on various physical platforms such as vinyl albums, cassettes and CDs, but the songs themselves avoid being physical.

We listen to music by employing physical speakers, whether we listen to large hi-fi speakers, bluetooth speakers, or the tiny speakers in our Airpods. Those speakers must get the air to vibrate in order for us to receive the sound waves in our physical ears and translate them into a song with our brain.

We can’t touch songs. We can’t see songs. We only hear songs. And hearing is merely our translation of vibration, of sound waves in the air. We are literally feeling the air with our ears, and if loud enough, our bodies too. 

And because we are only feeling music, it puts us in a state where we can easily shift into our emotions. It’s like music stirs them up.

As a songwriter and songwriting coach, I love how a particular song with a very strong vibe can bring up different emotions and memories for different people. Usually after a show someone comes up to me and tells me what meaning and feeling they got from a particular song, and quite often it’s different from what the song means to me. This is because the song stirred some very personal emotions within them and maybe accessed certain memories.

We usually agree on what the vibe of a song is, but for each of us that vibe will access different emotions and memories. So, if a very popular song with a strong vibe is heard by a million people, it can trigger a million different emotions and memories. How cool is that?!