Never done one of these, but let’s give it a rip. I’ll try to explain how and why I wrote this song. A bunch of this is free. If you’re a paid subscriber, you’ll also find some demos, the chord chart for the song that Steve made, and a messed up story about the day this song really came together. That’s all at the very bottom. If you’re into this kinda thing, lemme know what other songs you’d like me to tear apart in the comment section.
90% of songs I write, chords and melodies come first, long before lyrics. Lyrics are so personal, and can really fucking ruin an otherwise good song if they suck. I think it’s the hardest part of songwriting. That’s why it’s usually the last thing I do.
On every album there’s an exception where the words come first, and Hallways is the exception on this record. When my decade long relationship collapsed (the same week we announced The Unraveling of PUPTHEBAND), I sat on my floor and wrote a bunch of the words that would become most of the lyrics to Hallways. They were the first words I wrote for our new record. The words were raw, from this place where it feels like the world is over, like life has closed a door on you and it’s shut forever and you’ll never be whole again. In retrospect, it’s easy to recognize that that’s bullshit for the most part, but I think most people are familiar with that feeling of “this will never feel ok again”, even if deep down they know that everything will get better. And then get worse, but then maybe get better again.
Those words sat in a dusty old notebook for a year. I never really thought about them. They were just words, painful ones, and that’s not really how I like to start songs. So I forgot about them and wrote a buncha other songs.
One day, April 2023, I was playing around with this chord progression. I had been listening to Better Oblivion Community Center and that song “Dylan Thomas” had kinda seeped into my bloodstream and I didn’t realize it in the moment but it musta knocked something loose in my brain because you can definitely hear the influence on Hallways. It’s the kinda thing that happens unconsciously, and I doubt anyone would notice if I didn’t point it out. Whoops.
The short, boring version of this story: I realized these Dylan Thomas-y chords I was messin with went really well with those words hiding in that notebook from those days when I felt like I was drowning. The way the chords made me feel against the lyrics just felt right. Like it was still raw and melancholic, but not too much of a downer. There was a lightness to the chords and how they worked with the lyrics that made me feel better about not just the song, but the whole situation.
The way more exciting and messed up version of this specific story involves a fucked up night at the worst bar in the world and it’s at the bottom of this thing for paid subs.
A few people have asked me where the title for this song came from, since “Hallways” is not actually a lyric in the song. It comes from this scrapped bridge from my original demo.
“There will be no other doors. This hallway’s a straight line”.
We thought about changing the title, since I don’t say “Hallways” in the new version. But no other name felt right. Writing this song, I was kinda thinking about moving through life and having all the doors closing around you, and how it starts to feel like an endless Hallway, and it just felt like the right title. I tend to trust those instincts.
Alright thanks for reading this far. Below the paywall you’ll find a messed up story about this song, a really stupid phone recording of the very first song idea, the first proper Hallways demo I made (without band), the full band demo (recorded and mixed by Nestor in our jam space), and the chord charts written out by Steve.
