VIDEO CONTENT:
In this video I take you through all of the individual instrumental and production parts that happen throughout the song “Part of the Ride”. There’s even a cute little cameo of my older daughter halfway through. :)
This next video is the official music video for “Part of the Ride”. It was filmed at Topsail Island, North Carolina… just a couple hours away from where I attended grad school (University of North Carolina School of the Arts).
We had a ton of fun shooting this video. Just traveling to the shooting location was an adventure. The mini deserted island that we filmed at within Topsail took about a 15 minute canoe ride across an ocean channel. The mosquitos were killer and the sun was brutal, but after a full day of shooting we were able to get all the footage we needed.
My friend Adam Ingram Perry shot and directed the video originally for a different song of mine called “Silhouettes” which I will also provide the original video edit for that below too.
When “Part of the Ride” was released, I couldn’t help but re-edit the footage to it because it was too perfect to tell the story of this song:
And here is the song that the footage was originally shot for… the song “Silhouettes” is on my hidden “Open Your Wings EP” which you can get with my free “Mind Cycles EP”, HERE.
LYRICS
“Find the keys," she said to me.
“I’m gonna take you on a drive
Back down this memory lane.”
It’s gonna get worse
Before it gets better
But it'll hurt less
When the ride's over
Can you follow
Where the light went dead?
Do you remember
When the fight got harder?
When you feel it
Keep it in your head
Then shout it out
Just shout it out:
I’m out of my mind
But feeling alive
Shout it again
It’s just part of the ride
Well have I seen a ghost?
'Cause what I needed most
Was a shot to tell you about
What’s haunting me now
But turn my back again
With my hands shaking
Patterns never win
But I can feel it breaking
Can you follow
Where the flight went dead?
Do you feel it?
As you fight, you're stronger
When you find it
Keep it in your head
But run it out
Just run it out
I’m out of my mind
But feeling alive
Shout it again
It’s just part of the ride
This is the last time
That I give in to this lie
This is the last time
That I get on for this ride
SONG LORE
Writing Process
The writing process for this one was a blast. I really wanted to explore different production sounds, keyboards, and synths to glue it all together. Like most of my songs, “Part of the Ride” started on acoustic guitar. I usually use the acoustic guitar to decide which chord structure every song will have. Once I figure that out, I sketch out the song structure in Logic X in my studio and start experimenting with different sounds.
When recording vocal “whoas” it’s usually better to get a group of singers to record all singing at once, but I tried something different. I recorded my own voice singing the “whoas” in as many different tones as possible. Thin voice, hefty voice, manly voice, teenage voice lol the list goes on. The reason why you don’t want to record your voice singing everything in the same tone is to avoid something called “phase shifting” in the audio mix which basically means the audio files cancel each other out if they’re too similar in tone quality.
At the end of the song you hear a beeping synth panning back and forth between left and right speakers. This is to represent something called EMDR therapy which I’ll speak to in the Song Meaning section.
Song Meaning
I always hesitate to share a song’s meaning because it’s usually specific to me, but I truly feel these songs are meant for each listener to interpret and find their own meaning. I’d hate for my meaning to get in the way from a listener finding their own. Also, over time I usually find different meanings come out of my songs for me so it’s always changing.
That said, when I wrote this song I was seeing a therapist who specialized in EMDR therapy. This kind of mental health therapy is supposed to help process past trauma. I saw this therapist for almost a year and really felt like I got a lot out of it. In my opinion, everyone could use a therapist haha. Mental health has always had a negative stigma, but I think priority-wise it’s just as important as physical health.
Basically in EMDR therapy you wear headphones that have a synth tone beeping back and forth between ears. Sometimes it requires that you also hold these remotes that also buzz back and forth in your hands while you dive deep into past trauma experiences and feelings with the therapist.
A lot of the lyrics are like a dialogue between me, my therapist, as well as conversations with myself in my own head and with people from my past. Like I mentioned earlier, the song ends with hearing the EMDR-like synth tone beeping back and forth to represent this process.
Life really is a wild “ride” isn’t it? That’s what this song is talking about at least. The experiences gone thru throughout life are all just part of the great ride. Some are scarier and some are more fun than others. Life wouldn’t be as exciting though without some bumps or loops on the rollercoaster track, right? Just like Light vs Shadow. The scarier parts of “the ride” make the smoother parts that much more enjoyable.