How did this song come to be?
There are several stories that fueled the construction of "Hello, Hello". The first motivating spark was when I was compelled to write a poem in 2009 which I had titled "Hello Good Bye La La Land". It was inspired after spending several days with a friend of mine where through our encounters we had really bonded over sharing life stories connected with our passion for music. I would find my friend to be so interesting, wise and musically talented, yet so held back by internal torture which would make him lose all that wonderful wisdom. He would inspire and frustrate me at the same time by letting depressive reflective moments over take and supersede all the wonderful positive moments we had just shared.
After several of these encounters I felt I needed to release these feelings I had experienced and wrote this poem.
Hello Good Bye La La Land
Hello, hello bleeding drug addicts
Who play the victim when you're the advocates
Spin your web of lies to feed your habit
The hunger so strong the feeling so numb
Each little butterfly that comes flying by
Gets caught and tangles in your cold web of lies
Hold them close in your clutches till everything's drained
Then blame everyone else for all of the pain
The lies help you feel so you think but there's nothing
Just broken dreams, emptiness and memories unseen
Each day becomes one till it all seems the same
A journey of dull colours, a not so fun game
When your heart starts to beat, stab it hard make it stop
Cause feeling is pain and pain must be blocked
Nothing is left, lets destroy all that can be had
Break anything old, new or possible and lets just stay sad
A few years after writing this poem I spent the day in the studio with the Final Gravity band members and I brought this poem as a possible song writing idea. Guitarist Michael Clark began playing the Grand Piano for fun and was toying with this rhythmic one note idea. I began improvising to the musical idea using the story of the poem and we then decided to record whatever came up. We performed this improvised song for about 12mins pouring out natural emotion that just seemed to make sense. We listened back to the recording and found the perfect pieces to create our 4min song. It just seemed to construct very organically and I think that is because the original story idea came to me like a vision and it was so natural writing that first poem idea. This interesting song we created was then placed with the potential songs to be released as an album in the near future, which turned out to be 8 years later.
Sadly not long after this music writing session I learnt that my friend had given into the demons he struggled with and died of a drug overdose. It was sad to learn that he had not found the light at the end of the tunnel I had hoped he would find.
A few years after the initial studio session we returned to the song for fine tuning. The band officially decided to take the demo we made of the song and construct a final version to be released. I sit down with the lyrics of this song and at this time in my life I had just ended a relationship with someone. This boyfriend would at times be amazing and I could see the brilliant light shining from him and then he would smash all that goodness away and destroy any greatness that seemed to be progressing. I had been riding this emotional rollercoaster for too long and felt completely drained and exhausted from watching him throw away all things great about him. Having just come out of this negative relationship it was fresh on my mind and fit with this story. So I finished the song with this new progression of ideas and ultimately the composition of the song was completed.
(Hello, Hello) Bleeding Sadness
Hello hello bleeding sadness
You play the victim when your the advocate
Spin your web of lies to feed your habit
The hunger so strong the feeling so numb
Hello hello bleeding sadness
Hello hello bleeding sadness
Each little butterfly
That come flying by
Get caught and tangled
In your cold web of lies
Each day becomes ones
Till it all feels the same
A sea of blinding grey
A not so fun game
A not so fun game
Hello hello bleeding sadness
Hello hello bleeding sadness
When your heart starts to beat
Stab it hard - Make it stop -
Cause feeling is pain
And the pain
The pain it must be blocked
Nothing is left
Lets destroy all that you can have
Nothing is left
Lets destroy everything you can be
Break anything
Old, new or possible
And lets just stay sad
Oh lets just stay sad
Hello hello bleeding sadness
Hello hello bleeding sadness
I saw the brightness inside you
But you didn’t have a clue
I hoped and prayed that you’d see the truth
But now I’m empty too
Now I am sad too
Oh now I’m bleeding too
My sadness bleeds through you
The song however didn't truly make sense to me until May of 2019. This is also when I filmed the footage of the music video finally understanding what this song I had written so long ago meant (and I believe that comes through in the video imagery). What awakened the story inside me was spending 2 months in Australia with my sick Dad. I live in Los Angeles and had found out early in 2019 that my Dad who lives in Australia had been diagnosed with cancer for the third time and this time it was in the bowels. Through my communications it seemed he was fighting it and I stayed in regular virtual contact.
My Father had been a tortured soul since childhood growing up in an abusive household where his Dad would get into drunken rages hitting his Mother, him and his brother. It was a terrible way to grow up as a child and unfortunately he held onto that negativity his whole life. He would look at life and situations very pessimistically and to forget his problems he became addicted to gambling which would make him lie to his family and always be stressed out not enjoying life or letting his good qualities shine.
Knowing my Dad's back story I was concerned for his mental and emotional state in all of this as I believe strongly in the power of the mind. The reports I was getting were that my fathers cancer seemed to be taking over and I felt I needed to be there in person to motivate him to good health, especially knowing the negative mindset he struggles with. Upon my arrival he is so surprised and happy to see me. He instantly improves like magic beginning to walking again, eating food, planning his future and everything is improving. The spark I knew was in him started shining again. I was so happy to see him not giving into the potential doom and negative mindset which I had seen all too often. Instead the positive power of his mind was healing him. This positive improvement continued for just over a month. The doctors were happy and ready for him to get ready to go home but he wasn't feeling ready to go home, he was fearful and wanted more healing time. When the doctors learnt he wanted to stay longer they proceeded to have a lengthy talk with him telling him he should just give up, he will never be cured and he would be best just to start taking Morphine. When told this my father completely changed like turning off a switch. He stopped talking, stopped eating, stopped caring and stopped trying. All the positive improvement and energy that had been had for the last month meant nothing and he let depressiveness take over. After 1 week of not eating and ultimately only taking Morphine he sadly died.
I had really tried to help him and believed I could easily help him get through this. From the day my plane landed in Australia I visited my Dad everyday through the positive and the negative until the day he died. Watching my Dad's final journey made me truly understand what this song I wrote so long ago meant. He was emulating the people of my past and living this story I had written. I hadn't realized until the final moments how alike all of these people were. This song represented all of them like a sad prediction and it was ever so clear after I experienced this intense 2 month encounter with my Dad.
Seeing the spark in people and having no power whatsoever to help illuminate their light.
Ultimately the hard lesson I learn't over the last 10 years is that we can only control our own lives. You are the master of your own destiny. My hope is that more people choose to illuminate their light and not give in to the "Bleeding Sadness".
https://youtu.be/mYurTfMXAEM
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