Ben Thornewill knows he wasn't supposed to catch that look in her eyes. It wasn't meant for him, a stranger on the streets of Austin, Texas. But there was something there that kept with him as his band Jukebox the Ghost continued on down the road.
Now two years later, Thornewill has two songs that started in that very moment. One is "Somebody," which the Washington D.C.-born band is pushing as its first song on a forthcoming album, Safe Travels. Hear Nebraska caught up with Thornewill as he walked down the streets of Brooklyn.
Follow along as he talks about the look, the 1898 grand piano he recorded the song on and the reason this column is departing from its Nebraska-only constraints: their video with Love Drunk as the video project travels through New York City halfway through its May 4 to May 20 tour.
To support the Love Drunk project, come to one or both benefit shows in the next week:
April 29 at Duffy's Tavern in Lincoln
Love Drunk Tour Fundraiser w/ Classes | Millions of Boys | Arrah and the Ferns (Philly)
[Facebook Event]
May 3 at The Sydney in Omaha
Love Drunk Tour Fundraiser w/ Honeybee & Hers | Bazooka Shootout
[Facebook Event]
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Hear Nebraska: Do you actively think about which key a song will be in when you write them?
Ben Thornewill: Not necessarily. Some keys just feel better than others, and that’s a weird sentence. I think that’s a piano thing especially. And so, there’s a certain range of keys that work well for my voice, from C to E flat. But it’s mostly about whatever mood I’m in when I sit down at the piano.
HN: What does the key of C say to you?
BT: You know, maybe it’s a simplicity thing. The rhythms are somewhat complicated, I guess, but it’s pretty straightforward. I actually wrote a lot of the song on a synth during a car ride. It was easiest to play around with. It lends itself to a simplicity of the chord changes, which is of course better for a pop song. It’s that lesson I learn over and over again that being simple is usually best.
HN: Were you writing “Somebody” to anybody in particular?
BT: No, not anyone in particular, but there was an instance that sort of brought about the germ of the song. I was in Austin, Texas, a couple years ago for South by Southwest and just saw this girl’s eyes over another guy’s shoulder.
She just had this amazing look of a sort of longing, and I manifested that into this concept of, “What if she’s looking for me?” From that spawned the whole “I want somebody, we all want somebody” idea.
HN: Definitely. How does writing a song compare with the expression of feelings you could tell this somebody in, say, an email?
BT: You know, I wouldn’t write an email (laughs), which is what it boils down to. So much of the magic and romance with songs is that whether it’s written for someone or no one, it’s just this fictional concept. That distance, the fact that you’re not actually there gives the song its power.
So I don’t think that I would, but if I knew who she was, I might say, “Hey, this song came from having seen you somewhere,” but I don’t think I’d ever go beyond that. I’ve written songs in the same way. Actually “The Spiritual” is another song on the record with the same germ, sort of inspired by that girl. I don’t think I’d ever say that out loud, though, and that’s kind of the beauty of it.
HN: OK, and you said you wrote this song on a synth in a car?
BT: Part of it, yeah (laughs).
HN: Was that on the way back from South by Southwest?
BT: You know, I don’t know if it was. It may have been during that tour. But there was just a funny synth I was messing around with and the image from South By stuck with me for so long that whenever I was writing it, that’s what was on my mind.
HN: With a song like this that features multiple choruses, how do you decide how many repeats of the chorus you’ll do?
BT: That’s a band decision. For this one, the structure of the chorus is pretty much the same. But the other guys in the band, I can’t understate how important they are. Regardless of who writes the songs, we’ll all talk about the structure and what works best.
HN: Tell me about the instruments you played on this song for the recording.
BT: We did the whole record on a beautiful 1898 grand piano. And there’s the basic stuff, guitar and drums. There’s the synth bass, some blown-out Rhodes, some ahs — by ahs, I mean a synth patch — but yeah, we tried hard on this record to make it sound like the live band playing with the energy we have.
HN: Do you know the story behind the grand piano?
BT: I don’t know the story behind it. It was in a studio in the Lower East Side, and it was a Steinway grand, a six-footer. It was beautiful. In deciding where to record, we went to four or five studios across the city.
I even played on this gorgeous Yamaha that Alicia Keys and Elton John had recorded on. It was funny, though, because it played well, but it didn’t have the character I was looking for. This other piano absolutely twinkled and shined, and it felt great on my fingers. I loved it.
HN: Why did you choose to end the song on an A minor?
BT: You know, it was the only one that made sense. We tried all of them. If you end it on C, it sounds like, “Tada!” It just sounded terrible. With this chorus being mostly F chords, we considered ending on F, but that doesn’t sound resolved.
And you know, even though it’s a pump-up jam, there’s still some melancholy to it, and I think that’s why the A minor works.
HN: What can a video like the Love Drunk video potentially do for your band?
BT: You just want as many different interpretations of the song as you can get out there. So I think a beautifully shot and well-performed version of the song should be helpful as we get ready for the album to come out.
CHORDS
C Am G
I want it, I need it, I want somebody
C Am G
I want it, I need it, I want your eyes to turn
C Am G
I need it, I want it, I want somebody
C
Baby, now this is my turn
C C/E F
I don't want any more doors
F G Am
'Cause I'm walking on string
C C/E F
They only slam anymore
F G Am
Like we're pulling out teeth
C C/E F
I could just see your eyes
F G Am
Just above his shoulder
C C/E F
And you were scanning the skies for me, I dreamt
F G Am
Like you were some long forgotten soldier
C G
Like I was someone that you cared for
I want it, I need it
F-e-F-e-F-e Am G
I want it, I need it, I want somebody
F-e-F-e-F-e Am G
I want it, I need it, I want your eyes to turn
F-e-F-e-F-e Am G
I need it, I want it, I want somebody
F-e-F-e-F G Am F
Baby, now this is my turn
C-C/E-F-G-Am
C C/E F
I don't want any more heartbreak
F G Am
I'm tired of the sound it makes
C C/E F
Like trying to shut out the dark at night
F G Am
You close your eyes but it won’t erase
C C/E F
And you were walking beside
F G Am
Some other person's shadow
C C/E F
It was more than I could take
F G Am
I wouldn't see what I couldn't know
C G
That there might be somebody after me
I want it, I need it
F-e-F-e-F-e Am G
I want it, I need it, I want somebody
F-e-F-e-F-e Am G
I want it, I need it, I want your eyes to turn
F-e-F-e-F-e Am G
I need it, I want it, I want somebody
F-e-F-e-F G Am F
Baby, now this is my turn
C-C/E-F-G-Am X 2
C C/E F
I need that new vacation
F G Am
Where nothing that's spoken is known
C C/E F
Let the winter be my station
F G Am
I'll let the cold teach me what to know
C G
That there might be somebody after me
C
I want it, I need it
I want it, I want it, I need it
F-e-F-e-F-e Am G
I want it, I need it, I want somebody
F-e-F-e-F-e Am G
I want it, I need it, I want your eyes to turn
F-e-F-e-F-e Am G
I need it, I want it, I want somebody
F-e-F-e-F G Am F
Baby, now this is my turn
C-C/E-F-G-Am X 4
Michael Todd is Hear Nebraska's managing editor. He wishes to be walking through Prospect Park on a rainy afternoon. Reach him at michaeltodd@hearnebraska.org.