Benjamin William Hastings
Commentary - Who’s Eden?
"Who's Eden"?
Um, okay, this, I'm gonna try and be quick 'cause I know I'm rambling a lot on these
But this story's really funny, so
We were like in handover day for the record and, um
It was like done
And I was in a meeting with the label that day
Where, this amazing team, and
One of the guys on the call, Matt
'Cause we, 'cause they, they knew it was gonna, it was a really long record
So they were like, "You didn't decide to add another song last minute, did you?", as a joke
And I remember sitting in that meeting being like, I gotta do it
Like just because of that comment
Like I've gotta try to find a way to get another song in here, it'd be really funny
And so, and Chris called me afterward, my manager, and was like
He was like, "You're not thinking about it, are you?"
And I was like, that's him laughing
I was like, no, I am
He was like, "I knew it"
He was like, "I knew he shouldn't have said that"
So anyway, there was this one moment on the record, that...
Actually I wanna talk about this because
It feels like a good point that there's not really much of a song to talk about, so
I really wanted the whole record to flow really well
So if you were to pull up the keys
And I can maybe go through it at some point
And, it all kind of flows, and
It uses the circle of fifths a lot, so, if, if you care about that, but basically
It just means that the keys in the different songs move, um, seamlessly
So the hope is you don't feel an abrupt change at any point in the album
You can put it on in the background
And you wouldn't notice a song moving into the other song
It, it seamlessly kinda flows
And even the hard transitions
Like going from D to C from "Dancing with My Shadow" into, um
Sorry, no, no, from C sharp to D, which should be the harshest of transitions
That C sharp feels like a blasting into D, "Dancing with My Shadow"
We finish, I, we start "Dancing with My Shadow" on the A, which has a C sharp in it
So I highlight the C sharp at the start of that riff
So that you don't notice that the keys have had this really harsh change
So, all that to say there was a lot of intentionality into the transitions
And the only transition that I couldn't, um, handle
Was the transition from that one, "Dancing with My Shadow" in D
Into "Eden" in C
And it didn't feel bad
It just felt like the only one that didn't have intentionality
And so when Matt, I honestly had been like
"There's no way we can add anything else, it just is what it is, I'm gonna have to live with this but it's gonna annoy me forever"
And when Matt said that as a joke, it almost gave me this weird permission
To fix the problem that had been like, nagging me in my mind
So I was like, "Okay, cool, I'm gonna fix this"
So, who, and it was just, it came together so beautifully, so
I had been playing "Dancing with My Shadow" on like, on my computer
Trying to figure out how would I transition from this to this
And the kids were running around in the garden but I guess they heard that in the background
And so, I was like, "Maybe I'll just ask them a question and see what happens"
So I hit my voice note
I start recording and all of a sudden my daughter starts singing "Dancing with My Shadow"
Which you can hear on the thing
My son's running around, just like being crazy, like spinning around the room
And I, you'll hear it on the thing, but I asked Jeanie, um
"What do you know about Eden?"
And she really cutely replies, "Who's Eden?"
And I was like, okay, that is just absolutely perfect
And it was so easy, so, it just like happened, like that
It felt like just this magic, um, God moment
And I have Matt Reed to thank for it
So, thank you, Matt