Till We Meet Again
1.Till We Meet Again
[Verse]
We were in love and it was magic
Happy to say, it wasn’t tragic
So true, so true, so true, so true
[Chorus]
I’ll stay young
Till We Meet Again
Carry on
Till We Meet Again
I’ll stay open, keep on hopin’
Till We Meet Again
[Verse]
Lost within you, time was flowing
Here in my arms, love is growing
With you, with you, with you
[Chorus]
I’ll stay young
Till We Meet Again
Carry on
Till We Meet Again
I’ll stay open, keep on hopin’
Till We Meet Again
[Bridge]
Life goes by, an’ I won’t forget
Turns to gold, at ev’ry moment
(Turns to gold, at ev’ry moment)
[Chorus]
I’ll stay young
Till We Meet Again
Carry on
Till We Meet Again
I’ll stay open, keep on hopin’
Till We Meet Again
I’ll stay young
Till We Meet Again
Carry on
Till We Meet Again
I’ll stay open, keep on hopin’
Till We Meet Again
Song Length: 2:56
Writer: Jody Whitesides IPI/CAE 00196306650
Writer: Jesse Stern IPI/CAE 00351268471
Publisher: Too Much Music IPI/CAE 00456952518
Publisher: Seriously Funky Music IPI/CAE 00405887047
Admin Publisher (Outside U.S.): Bluewater Music
Jody Whitesides: Vocals, Guitars, Synths, Drums
Jesse Stern: Bass, Additional Synths
George Leger III: Additional Synths
Choir Vocals: Jesse Stern, George Leger III, Jody Whitesides, Val Larsen, Julia Rivera
Chris Hellstrom: Additional Electric Guitar
Recording Info:
Cover Art: Molly McGinnis
Recording Engineer: George Leger III
Recording Engineer Acoustic Guitar: Robert A Navarro
Mixing Engineer: George Leger III
Mixing Engineer: Jody Whitesides
Mastering Engineer: George Leger III
Vocal Engineer: George Leger III
Producer: George Leger III
Producer: Jody Whitesides
Acoustic Guitar Studio: RA Audio (Burbank)
Electric Guitar Studio: Dancin Deer Studio (Park City)
Mandolin Studio: Dancin Deer Studio (Park City)
Vocal Studio: Utopia Parkway Music (LA)
Choir Vocal Studio: Dancin Deer Studio (Park City)
Choir Vocal Studio 2: Utopia Parkway Music (LA)
Mixing Studio: Dancin Deer Audio (Park City)
Mixing Studio 2: Utopia Parkway Music (LA)
Mastering Studio: Utopia Parkway Music (LA) – Hackintosh. Apollo Silver-Face. Logic Pro. Universal Audio Plugins. Genelec 1029a with Tannoy Sub.
Guitar(s): Taylor Guitars 615ce: Direct via CS system into K4, and 2 Neumann KN184 mics.
Taylor Guitars Barritone Guitar: 2 Neumann KN184 mics.
‘Jesus’ joe’s guitar with the Neck (cool rails duncan) / Bridge (custom custom) pickups at same time and in humbucking mode. Dean Markley Blue Steel’s .11-.52 tuned to standard tuning. Into Groove Tubes Vipre set to instrument input ‘fast’ rise time. With the: 5db knob set to: 35db, 1db knob set to: 0db, Polarity: Normal, High Pass: Off. Using a Studio Devil Amp into Bogner and UberKabs.
“Whitesides Viper 7” Model 1. Neck (custom seymour duncan stacked single coil humbucker) / Bridge Custom Custom 7 string model. Both pickups on. Dean Markley Blue Steels .11 – .60 Standard 7 string tuning. Into Groove Tubes Vipre. Instrument input. “Medium” Rise Time. 5db Knob set to: 35db, 1db Knob set to: -2db, Polarity: Normal, Hi Pass: Off. Using Hi-Watt DR-103 into Marshall BW Cabs.
‘Diner’ joe’s guitar with the Custom Custom Zebra Seymour Duncan pickup. Dean Markley Blue Steel’s .11-.52 tuned to standard tuning. Into Groove Tubes Vipre set to instrument input ‘Slow’ rise time. With the: 5db knob set to: 30db, 1db knob set to: 0db, Polarity: Normal, High Pass: Off. Using Studio Devil Amp into Fender Twin Cabs.
‘Desert’ strat guitar with the Custom Custom Seymour Duncan pickup, set to series single (center switch position). Dean Markley Blue Steel’s .11-.52 tuned to standard tuning. Into Groove Tubes Vipre set to instrument input ‘Slow-med’ rise time. With the: 5db knob set to: 30db, 1db knob set to: +2db, Polarity: Normal, High Pass: Off. Using Studio Devil Amp into Roland JC-120 Cabs.
‘Jesus’ joe’s guitar with the Bridge (custom custom) pickup in humbucking mode. Dean Markley Blue Steel’s .11-.52 tuned to standard tuning. Into Groove Tubes Vipre set to instrument input ‘fast’ rise time. With the: 5db knob set to: 35db, 1db knob set to: -2db, Polarity: Normal, High Pass: Off. Using a NI Gratifier Amp into Marshall Cabs.
Parker Fly guitar. Full Neck humbucker pickup (DiMarzio of some sort). Stereo button ‘in’. Full volume both 1 & 2. No Piezos. Strung with Dean Markley Blue Steels .11 – .52 to standard tuning. Into Groove Tubes Vipre set to instrument input ‘Fast’ rise time. With the: 5db knob set to: 35db, 1db knob set to: +1db, Polarity: Normal, High Pass: Off. Using Studio Devil Amp into Marshall 1960 Cabs.
‘Jesus’ joe’s guitar with the Neck (cool rails duncan) / Bridge (custom custom) pickups at same time and in humbucking mode. Dean Markley Blue Steel’s .11-.52 tuned to standard tuning. Into Groove Tubes Vipre set to instrument input ‘Medium Slow’ rise time. With the: 5db knob set to: 45db, 1db knob set to: -2db, Polarity: Normal, High Pass: Off. Using a Pod Farm Mesa/Boogie Mark I Amp into Mesa/Boogie Rectifier Cabs.
Additional Electric Guitar (Chris): Music Man Luke model guitar. Strung with Dr strings 9-46. EMG pickups. Into an Apogee Duet Interface. Using Orange Amp Stack into Orange 4×12 Cab.
Additional Electric Guitar (George): Godin LGXT. For underlying part in the 2nd verse.
Bass(s): Jesse: ’85 Fender Jazz Bass (played with a pick) into Aguilar DB 751 bass head, into BAE 312. Mogami cables.
Drums: The drums are programmed by Jody and approved by Jesse. The sounds are from Logic Drum Kit.
Vocal: Lead vocals in this were recorded using a Telefunken C-12. Recorded into an Apollo 8 silver-face using a Neve 1073 Pre and 1176 Limiter.
Choir Background vocals from Val Larsen & Julia Rivera Telefunken C12, then into GT Vipre with the following settings: 2400 ohms, Polarity: Off, Hi Pass: Off, 5db: 50, 1db: 0, Rise: Slow, Phantom: Off. Then into MOTU 2408mkIII.
Choir background vocals with George Leger III, Jesse Stern, and Jody Whitesides. Telefunken C12 through Avalon 737sp.
Bridge vocal FX for repeating line. GrooveTubes MD1a, into GrooveTubes Vipre
Synths: Synth pad: Jesse: designed to make the chorus sound epic. Reason’s Thor synth, and it’s the initial default patch, with a few tweaks. Fun fact: it gets gradually brighter each chorus.
FX Synth: Jesse: Wind in pop songs is one of the most fun sound designs for a nerd producer like me, because there are so many ways to do it. I made this one in Reason using Thor and a low-pass filter.
Echo Pad 1 & 2: Jesse: These two echo pads are designed to work together, to add a bit of motion and life to the choruses. I made them both in Reason, using Thor, Alligator (for the gate) and pulverisor (for coloration).
Arp Synth: Jesse
Pad Synth: Jesse
String Pad: Jody: to thicken up the chorus for a lush feel. Using Legato Sustained Session Strings
NI FM8: Jody: A single note synth used to help lush up and fill out the movement of the bass in the chorus.
Sculpture Synth: Jody: A funky sound used to cap off the chorus and push us into the 2nd verse.
NI Massive: Jody: A twisty synth sound to give us a floating sound in the bridge for a spacy swirling sound to set it apart from the rest of the song.
Blade Synth: Jody: A line to mimic the movement of the top line to the acoustic guitar. Played via the Blade synth using the Ozone Bullets preset.
Logic Retro Synth: Jody: This is a layer that doubles the moving top of the acoustic guitar.
Sculpture Synth: Jody: Another bell like sound to layer into the final chorus to mimic the top line of the acoustic guitar line.
Zebra Synth: George played six different little bits with 6 different custom presets with this synth.
Grand Piano VI: George played a small part on stock grand piano VI.
Arp Synth: George played two small arp synth parts.
Misc Instruments: Mandolin: Jody: to double the top acoustic guitar line with a harmony. Signal: Telefunken C12 into GT Vipre: Rise: Fast, VU: 0, Phantom: off, OHM: 2400, Polarity: Norm, Hi Pass: Off, 5db: 40, 1db: 0.
Yamaha Grand Piano: Jody: to give the bridge an additional percussive harmonic bit.
Song Story:
This song started with the simplistic guitar riff. It was a holdover idea from my time attending Berklee College of Music. I spruced it up a little. Then I presented it to a bass player friend who was interested in working on it, but we never really got together to work it up. Months later I reached out to Jesse Stern and we started the collaboration on the writing of the song. Initially the lyrics were rather dark in nature. I don’t recall what we our first draft was about. What I do recall is that Jesse was going thru a kind of dark time in life.
I reeled it back in and nixed the dark nature of the lyrics, suggesting that we needed it to have more prosody to the lyrics. Which pushed us more toward our eventual final title of Till We Meet Again.
Going back and forth with writing sessions for the demo, it was the drums that likely took us the longest. Mainly because I was pushing heavily for a break away from the standard 4/4 of the song in just one spot. We had multiple iterations of a particular drum fill that I put together. Each iteration of the extra beats had different fills. Jesse really dug my 5/4 measure and that’s what we rolled with. In the studio recording Vocals George commented about the drums and that particular measure and fill. Asking who the drummer was. Little did he know…
Initially this song was to be part of a full album. I had a plethora songs demo’d up and I was working on whittling them down to an album. But the industry shifted and it became better to think in terms of singles. Which pushed me to think of this song having it’s own legs to stand on.
While in George’s studio recording vocals, George mentioned that I had given him goosebumps. Which is a great thing. He also made a statement that really flattered me. “This is your Purple Rain.” Meaning that he felt that this song would be a defining song. Actually quite a few people who heard it before it was released felt similarly (that it would be a giant hit). While recording the acoustic guitars at Robert Navarro’s studio he exclaimed that this song “wrapped him up in the Universe and touched him to the very core.” These are powerful statements.
At some point all the amazing statements that I’ve heard will become a giant voice from 100s of 1000s of people and it will be an amazing thing. So… Till We Meet Again!
Factoids:
1. 4 women were asked to sing backgrounds, only two made it to the studio for the recording.
2. The mix is a towering 137 tracks in the mix.
3. Acoustic guitar parts were recorded at RA Audio.
Copyright: 20180203
ISRC: USONR1700006
ISRC: USONR1700007
ISWC: T9128152045
SESAC Song ID: 766521
Harry Fox ID: TVDFTK
Harry Fox Publisher ID: P8938Q
UPC: 840090187492
UPC: 840090187331