'Til You're Mine

2014

Alex and I finish a rough demo in his home studio called "Risk", and then we immediately keep writing more. Within a week, his house becomes like a second home to me, and our days fall into a routine.

Dani drops me off in the hills every morning, making an extreme detour on her way to work in exchange for coffee from her favorite cafe on me. I pick up one for Alex too– very little cream, a whole lot of sugar– and when I get to his house, we drink our coffee and chat in his kitchen, his eyes still bleary from sleep, his long hair usually a soft, boyish mess. We usually pick up wherever our conversation ended the night before, in person or over text, and generally catch up until the caffeine kicks in. And then, when we both feel sufficiently awake, we sit down to work.

It's clear right away that our writing styles are different. Alex is organized, and has this ability to take a topic– the most everyday mundane thing, or the deepest most beautifully painful stuff– sit down, make work of it, and turn it into art; whereas I'm emotionally-driven, free-floating, melodical. And truthfully, his professionality and order gives direction to my creativity and emotion, and makes me feel less frazzled and rudderless in my writing. At the same time, I pull him out of the studio and shake up his method– force him to sit in the hills in his backyard and write, pull the guitars out and dip our feet in the pool while we work. He humors me with a smile, and admits at the end of the day that the sun did something to him, because the music sounds different for it, right.

We break for lunch, sometimes venturing out for sandwiches and more coffee. Other times, we pick at the food he has at home, or snacks that I've brought, and he makes me a proper English cup of tea even though it's impossibly hot and dry outside. If we need a break from the music, we'll watch a bit of an old movie– I've forced him into a Vivien Leigh appreciation marathon, and so it's mostly her work at first– or fiddle around on our phones. When it gets undeniably hotter and hotter, we also stop to jump in the pool, and those days I get home sun drunk and exhausted.

As the days wind down, and it's later than either of us anticipated, we order Indian, or Thai, or Italian for dinner, though we always talk about how we should cook something healthy and homemade before I go. We've probably been drinking for hours by then, and the food tastes especially good on top of my tipsy buzz– at the end of a successful work day. While we eat, we watch more of our movie, or listen to music and talk, and it feels like I can't remember a time where this wasn't what we were doing. It feels so normal, so right, and domestic– like truly being home– and I usually leave way too late, self-conscious that I'm overstaying my welcome and so eager for my return.

After the first week of writing, Alex also arranges for a car service to come drive me home each night. I try to refuse, to say that I don't mind taking a cab or calling Dani, but he insists, and he insists on paying for it too. And so when I'm driven home in a shiny black car, chauffeured by a sweet old man in a suit who calls me things like "doll" and "sweetheart" and "girlie" in the most endearing way, I feel a little shinier than usual, and Dani smirks like she knows something I don't when I walk through the door.

As we work each day, we don't initially talk about what will come of it, or if Alex will stay on for the whole album, but it doesn't matter. I'm so grateful to be working with someone who isn't an outright creep, or pushing a Katy Perry-like pop agenda on me– someone who has experience in the music industry and understands my voice– that I don't think twice about it. What's more, the stuff we're writing feels right– feels like just what I should be creating.

We begin writing 'Shades' one afternoon when we finish swimming during our lunch break. It comes about after a conversation we have after we get out of the pool.