The Making Of 'St.Lucia'
Album Story Series: Chapter 5 | Behind-the-scenes of my debut album
‘St.Lucia’ is the oldest song on my debut album ‘East Of The Sun’.
She is now 9 years old.
I remember writing it though, like it was yesterday. I sat on my bedroom floor, notebook in hand, as I stumbled across the name St.Lucia. Not the Caribbean island, but the ancient mythical figure - the bearer of light in the dark Swedish winters.
I had been exploring the work of Swedish photographer and artist, Jonna Jinton, whose beautiful art I discovered online. You might recognise her name as I’ve shared her work a time or two in my newsletters. She had created a series of mesmerising photographs in honour of St.Lucia to pay tribute to the annual celebration held every year in Sweden.
2016
A spark of inspiration flickered, and I remember immediately printing off her enchanting photos and sticking them on the wall of my bedroom so I could be immersed in their ethereal atmosphere. I sat for a long time surrounded by notes and ideas, glancing up at the images on the wall, as if by staring at them long enough they would magically infuse themselves into me and I could be the vessel that turned the images into song. It wasn’t quite as slick as that, but it certainly helped me sink a little deeper into that world.
Writing the lyrics
I think I originally began writing ‘St.Lucia’ as a poem, using the photos as a reference. I didn’t know what I was writing it for, but I wanted to capture the hush of the deep mid-winter and the hope that came from St.Lucia herself.
I had no plan for the song, only to capture what I could see and feel in the photos. The pre-chorus into the chorus, for example, is quite literal:
“She stands alone in an ivory gown,
Candles lit upon a silver crown,
Made from ribbons and frosted branches,
I watch in awe as St.Lucia dances”.
It’s simple. Almost child-like. It describes what I see, but I think there’s something impactful about its simplicity. You can see her standing there before you.
The verses are perhaps more dreamy:
‘There’s a long winter ahead of us,
Cold enough for the trees to shiver
And the sun to grow weary
And the moon to shimmer’
I wanted to set the scene so that it was almost ominous, like you’re holding your breath. By the time you reach the chorus, St.Lucia is the elemental being bringing light during the darkest time of the year (or your life!).
The middle 8 became a kind of plea; ‘take us in your open arms, take us in your open arms’ and I always pictured this ethereal figure, St.Lucia herself, welcoming listeners into her warmth, giving us a reprieve from the dark and the cold. I didn’t know it then, but this song would follow the same story arc on the album. In the context of the record, it offers a moment of light and guidance through the difficult journey that the album follows.
Conjuring the music
The next memories I have are loose ones of me recording some melodies to accompany the words. I didn’t have any music recording software myself at this point, but my dad had GarageBand on his computer, and in the evenings he would let me borrow it to make music on.
I knew that the song needed to be atmospheric to imitate the art that had inspired it, so I underpinned the song with high, long synth notes and added pizzicato string rhythms and stacked a couple of harmonies (something I really struggled with during that time).
I’ve found an old clip I filmed here. It’s terrible, but you get a sense of the idea. I think that was all I ever wrote and recorded at that time. I’m pretty certain there was never a finished GarageBand version, so I must have turned to the piano at some point and finished the song on there.
It gets hazy when I try to pinpoint the first band arrangements for this. It didn’t fit my 2018 EP ‘Tales From The North’, so we never recorded it for that project, but we definitely would have had a version of the song at that point, and we were certainly playing it live at shows, getting to grips with how it felt.
I remember we had a lot of fun with this song on stage, and we were particularly playful with it. It was rock, it was pop, it was dreamy, it was high energy. We’d usually play it towards the end of our set or as an encore. We dreamed of people singing along to the ‘Take us in your open arms’ motif.
Here’s a video of us playing an early version ‘St.Lucia’ live on tour in London at the start of 2020! A much heavier, messier, faster, & energetic version 👀
2021
‘St.Lucia’ shape-shifted many times over the years and it took a little while to find its final form. However, in 2021, mid-pandemic and smack bang in the middle of my livestreaming era, I started making backing tracks for some of my songs. I was keen to practice my production, and I wanted to bring those demos to the livestreams and ‘St.Lucia’ was one of the lucky chosen ones.
With no access to rock guitars or heavy drums, I played with synthesizers and harmonies and dreamy pop rhythms instead. I wondered at first if I’d pushed it too far into the pop world, but playing it live regularly on the livestream made me realise how much joy it brought me to channel the ‘pop’ energy and dance to the song. It felt very freeing.
Infusing the demo into the final recording
As happened many times for the songs on the album, Jake and I took ‘St.Lucia’ to the next level with a fuller demo. We spent a long time finding the energetic balance of the track. I wanted the opening verses to remain ethereal and atmospheric, maybe even a little eerie. We loved the idea of a luminous chorus hitting with a big pop sound, (almost 80s-style thanks to snares and synths), to completely contrast the ambient opening. It was the light to the dark.
We pitched this idea when we took it into the studio with our producers and they helped us bring it into sharper focus. There are many elements that stayed from those early demos. The opening verses are very similar to the version Jake and I created, with the unusual percussion sounds and whimsical piano. But the ‘St.Lucia dances’ part of the chorus was the segment that our producers really shone the spotlight on.
The second pre-chorus of ‘she stands alone…’ is the same original synth bass line that Jake and I spent a lot of time on, inspired by a Bat For Lashes track which we loved, adding lightness and a sense of fun to the track.
The drop down into the middle 8 was always important to me. I loved the switch from high energy dancing to a kind of emotive contemplation with a rock essence. The vocals start off with a gentle delivery, and as the mantra is repeated, it gathers strength, becoming more sure of itself until it takes full control.
It took us a little while to get there with this section, but the core was always strong and I loved the final result. The tricky part was bringing it back to the final chorus and making it sweep perfectly into the outro - a repeat of the middle 8 - to reinforce the message of being embraced by the warmth and magic of St.Lucia and giving it the full power she deserves.
I remember that one of our producers, Matt, was never quite sure of this song when we started the project. I think it was the only one he struggled to envision, but I really felt the track deserved to be on the album and by the end of the recording process, it became one of Matt’s favourites, which I always felt was a good sign.
If you read my previous Substack about ‘Great Unknown’, you’ll know that I wanted it to transition into ‘St.Lucia’ and this was something we worked out towards the end of making these songs. I love the way it transcends from one into the other.
‘St.Lucia’ begins with a reflective moment after the chaos of ‘Great Unknown’. This felt to me like snow falling softly in a still forest, before the wildness of life rushes in.
Until next time,
Meg x