Black Tears - The story behind the song

Black Tears was the penultimate song written for my forthcoming debut album Quicksilver – The Masquerade Macabre. It came as the response to the aftermath of an intense relationship – one of those ones that might feel great at the time but in retrospect was not a great idea. The original idea for the song was inspired by a chance comment whilst making one of my videos and slowly formed into its own story, linking the feelings that when a relationship ends, we often have nothing material to ‘keep’ apart from memories – and that the sometimes obsessive sadness that comes out of a break up can blind us to the possibilities around us – a trap that I know I’ve fallen into many times and I hope others can relate to. The demands we place on the ones we love can sometimes be unrealistic – the hope that someone will love us ‘forever’ or ‘until the end of time’ are unreasonable and of course cut short by our own mortality if nothing else. On a bleak note, the theme of drowning is mentioned in the lyrics, which also comes up in the ‘B-side’ Mad Bad World. There’s also a clue to who the song is about in there too, but I’ll leave that to the Jane Marples and Hercule Poirots amongst you.

The full (album) version of the song is structured like a ‘sandwich’, with an ‘introduction’ and ‘epilogue’ that are almost the same apart from a small lyrical change that suggests the narrator hasn’t really learnt from his journey. I struggled to cut the song down to the supposedly more palatable ‘perfect three minutes’ so there’s still one slice of the sandwich at the beginning on the single edit. 

People often ask how songs are written: ‘Which do you write first? The words or the music?’ Often, as was the case with this song, the approach is more like a collage or a painting – I had fragments of lyrics and some of the riffs in my head and it took time to piece them together – though I had an idea of the chorus, structure and some of the arrangements in my head for a long time before we started recording. This and another song replaced two numbers that I was never quite happy with and I’m quite glad that I added it ‘at the last minute’.

As with most of the songs on the album, the song was recorded in lots of different places, the vocals in my home studio, guitars at the guitarist Alex Steer’s apartment and the bass and drums added by Paul White and James Johnston at Shock and Awe Studios. I made some errors in recording so had to record the backing vocals with Alice Redmond and Anna-Marie O’Sullivan twice, but I think we actually gave better performances the second time round as we all knew the song a lot better. The build in the second bridge is quite tricky; there are some notes of slightly superhuman length, which will be a challenge to reproduce live.

I’ve still yet to find anyone who can pin down who the song sounds like, which is frustrating when trying to promote the song in a press release, but also feels like a nice compliment – hopefully it has its own sound. In my head I was hoping to create a sonic world similar to the style of an old Dusty Springfield or Petula Clark number, which I think is complimented very nicely by Alex Steer’s guitar that reminds me of the playing on David Bowie’s version of Wild Is The Wind. I’m very proud of the arrangement of this song as much of the work was my own and it’s more or less what I heard in my head when I first dreamt it up. Plus it’s evidence that something good can come out of a situation that at the time can feel unendingly painful and unpleasant.

Black Tears will be released through iTunes on 5 November and is currently available for pre-order on Amazon.

Image by Robert Piwko / Bryon Fear (c) 2012

Black tears rolling down my skin

Black from all the bitterness that burns within

My black heart, beating in my breast

Remembering the one I always loved the best

All you gave me were things that I can’t keep

Schemes and daydreams to drown me in my sleep

All you left me were things that I can’t see

Black tears – black tears have blinded me

‘Give me your hand’ you said, as you led me into the blue

I softly bowed my head and said ‘My lord, I’ll follow you’

Through fields of make believes I walked three steps behind

As you sped on ahead, I tried to read your mind

Will you love me?

Will you be mine?

Will you stay with me until the end of time?

All you gave me were things that I can’t keep

Schemes and daydreams to drown me in my sleep

All you left me were things that I can’t see

Black tears – black tears have blinded me

So I made my bed, let you lie right by my side

And as you slept I wept, for fears I’d tried to hide

Concealing feelings that I couldn’t quite control

Made you a part of me, the half to make me whole

Will you still love me?

Will you still be mine?

Will you stay with me until the end of time?

All you gave me were things that I can’t keep

Schemes and daydreams to drown me in my sleep

All you left me were things that I can’t see

Black tears – black tears have blinded me

All you gave me were things that I can’t keep

Schemes and daydreams to drown me in my sleep

All you left me were things that I can’t see

Black tears – black tears have blinded me