An Ape’s Concept

After 2011’s Little Green Man, my third album, I knew that while I was happy with the direction my songwriting was headed — and frustrated with where the world was headed — I needed to go a bit deeper and darker the next time around. Once song ideas started beaming in, I knew that the next project had to be a “concept album” of interrelated songs, one that left nothing on the table artistically, or in regard to production.

Not surprisingly, the new songs developed around a central theme: Homo sapiens and its seemingly endless struggle to survive and evolve on our home planet. Cheery stuff, eh? I was still reading the news back then, so as they say — “Write what you know!”

After jotting down possible song titles like Opposable Thumb, and lines like “…here comes the baddest monkey on the earth,” I realized that a distinctly simian vibe was forming around this new crop of songs. My notebook started filling up with lines and imagery about monkeys and apes, and how Homo sapiens with all its technology and power is merely a part of that lineage. Are we evolving nowadays, or devolving? And so on.

At some point, the question, “Are the apes making progress?” popped into my head, quickly morphing into An Ape’s Progress — a play on words from William Hogarth’s classic eighteenth-century painting series and social commentary, A Rake’s Progress. The more I thought about it, An Ape’s Progress sounded like a wry and fitting title for the concept album I had in mind. It made playful reference to Hogarth’s cautionary tale, but with the human “ape” stepping into the role of the foolishly self-destructive “rake.” So even before most of the songs were written, I already had an album title and was off and running — upright, on two feet!

The first songs completed were Proud American, Man in the Sky, All for Nothing, and Nickel and Dime. Reading through the lyrics today — a few years down the road — I can see how they set the tone and shaped the completion of the remaining songs. While many of the lyrics shine a critical light onto our species and its behavior, I sometimes tried to make the music the opposite — i.e., lighter music with heavy meaning, and heavier instrumentation with less intense lyrics, etc. Along with a conscious decision to go for dynamic arrangements with contrasting quiet and loud sections, my songwriting hopper was filling with ideas for at least a ten-song album. In the end, while 20+ songs were written in that period, a concise ten-song running order seemed to cover all the desired musical and lyrical bases.

The concept was in place, the songs were written, and even the running order was determined before a note was recorded! That was very unusual for me, but I took it all to heart, as a good sign. The next question was: How should I record and produce this dark little masterpiece? But as usual I was getting ahead of myself.

First, I needed to record basic song demos!

-Pawlie.