Azelie

In a scene from #1 New York Times bestselling author Christine Feehan's just released book, Betrayal Road, lead character, Andrii Federoff ("Maestro"), sings a song he wrote for his lady, Azelie Vargas. He has just been on stage, playing and singing with his band; but now he sings alone, accompanying himself on the piano. Azelie is the name of the song. In real life, Caedyn Feehan wrote the lyrics for Azelie, and Chris Tong wrote the music, created the piano arrangement, and sang the song.

[Note: The song lyrics contain a Russian word, солнышко. It's pronounced "Solnyshkuh" and it means "Sun". It is used here as a term of endearment for Azelie, as are all the references to "sun" and "sunshine".]

The context for the song. Here is the passage from Christine Feehan's Betrayal Road, which provides the context for the song, Azelie:

The band was well-known to some and clearly had a loyal following. The testament was the amount of people who seemed to know all the lyrics to the songs. Azelie found them amazing. The music was incredible. They didn’t play cover songs; all the music was their own. Her heart beat far too fast when Andrii put down his guitar and went to the piano. He leaned into the microphone. “Don’t sing as a rule. I leave that to Seychelle or one of the others. But tonight, I’ll be playing a special song I wrote for my lady. First time playing it, so forgive me if it isn’t perfect yet.”

Azelie could barely breathe. He didn’t have to announce to everyone in the room that he’d written the song for her. Or that she was his lady. He’d made the declaration in his compelling, soft tone, the one guaranteed to send heat down a woman’s spine. Those in the room broke into applause. She could feel eyes on her and was grateful Lana’s table was tucked into the shadows.

Then Andrii began to play. The music was moody at first. Then hopeful. So beautiful it brought tears to her eyes. And that was before he even began to sing.

Caedyn Feehan (right) wrote the lyrics for the song, which appear in the published book. By the time Christine asked me if I could write the music for the song, the book had been sent to publishers, and the lyrics were "set in stone". So that was my starting point: taking Caedyn's lyrics and writing the music for them.

Song style for a "piano only" song. One of the very earliest decisions I made in writing the music was about the song style. In the book, Betrayal Road, Andrii is playing the song on a piano, singing solo (to and about his lady, who is in the audience), and unaccompanied by his bandmates. So I was looking at an intimate, "piano only" song.

But I quickly realized that a quiet, gentle piano arrangement like that song (which focuses on a few wonderful qualities of the loved one) is not a good fit for the lyrics to Azelie, which tell an actual story that is much fuller, longer, and richer in detail.

So I needed a fuller, richer, "one man band" piano arrangement style, where different parts of the piano arrangement play the roles of band instruments like drums, bass, and — of course — keyboard, while staying within the "soft rock" genre. This was something I was very familiar with! As a songwriter, I started out writing songs on the piano and creating multi-part piano arrangements that were like the "one man band" arrangement I needed for this song. I also was very comfortable creating piano arrangements that seamlessly moved through many different piano styles, which also would be required here for lyrics that expressed many feelings. So, because the piano is carrying the whole song on its back, I really worked hard to create a beautiful, memorable piano accompaniment.

Any resemblance you may hear in my opening piano for Azelie — or here and there throughout the song — is not coincidental!

It turns out that, while one can start writing a piano song with the thought that it will be something like Don't Stop Believing, in fact, the music quickly evolves — because the driving force behind the music being composed is the lyrics: they guide and direct the music more than any other influence! So I did start off playing and singing in a "Don't Stop Believing" style, but, the words soon drove me to expand the musical style, as I worked my way through the many moods of the lyrics. Christine Feehan describes how the characters in her books speak to her, and tell her where to direct the story. Something similar occurs with me in relation to song lyrics: they are constantly requiring me to make them sound as good as possible, even if I have to completely change the musical style and the phrasing of my singing, to do so.

So, because Caedyn's lyrics go through many moods and styles, the music follows suit faithfully, while remaining within the "soft rock" genre. Along the way, I can hear musical influences, piano styles, and singing styles, coming from many different "piano song" sources: Billy Joel, Phil Collins, Carol King, Roy Orbison, Michael McDonald, Eric Carmen, and the Beatles, are just some. But always, it is primarily the words that are shaping the music.

Moody verses, hopeful chorus. The lyrics make Azelie a long song: there are two verses, the chorus is repeated three times, and there is also a bridge between the last two repetitions of the chorus. The song comes in at a little under 5 minutes. I'll return to this issue of song length a little later. But I list the parts of the song (verses, chorus, and bridge) to mention another influence: Christine's own words (in Betrayal Road) describing the song intro: "The music was moody at first. Then hopeful. . . And that was before he even began to sing." I looked at Caedyn's lyrics and saw that the verses were "moody" and the chorus was "hopeful". So I used those two words as guides for writing the music to the verses and the chorus, with the thought that I'd then take music from the verse and chorus and turn it into a piano introduction to the song.

Duet: Azelie's "voice" in the chorus. I made the chorus (part of it) a bit of a duet between Andrii and Azelie, musically speaking. I don't mean you can hear an actual woman's voice. Rather, you can hear her "voice" represented by the high notes on the piano. Or, if you prefer. . . the high notes in Andrii's life are Azelie. Here's the section of the chorus where you can hear those piano high notes "responding" to Andrii's singing:

Piano introduction. A piano introduction was what Azelie was describing which she said, "The music was moody at first. Then hopeful. . . And that was before he even began to sing." So after I finished composing the music for the "moody" verses and the "hopeful" chorus, I drew from the music of those two parts to create the piano introduction, which was "first moody, then hopeful", and would serve as a musical prelude to (and preview of) the song that follows:

The bridge: first playful, then loving. I mentioned earlier that Azalie is a fairly long song, at nearly 5 minutes in length (not counting the piano intro). One of the ways that songwriters keep holding the listeners' interest in the song, especially when it is long, is to have a section called a bridge, that is musically very different from the verse and the chorus. So when listeners hear the bridge (which, in Azelie, starts at about 3 minutes into the song), they are surprised and delighted by the strikingly different music, even to the degree that, when the bridge is over, and the song chorus is repeated again, they are now perfectly happy to hear the chorus one more time, because of the refreshing musical diversion provided by the bridge. Interestingly, Sting finds the bridge (in songs that have bridges) to be the most interesting part of the song, because you just never know where it's going to go!

So when I reached the point of composing the bridge, I wanted it to emotionally and musically contrast with the music of the verses and the chorus — and it does. . . very much so!

If I could choose one word for the musical mood of the first version, it would be "playful" — contrasting with the moody verses and the hopeful chorus. I was picking up on the line from the bridge: "You show me. . . how to laugh."

As I was composing the first version of the bridge, I had in my head the chorus of Roy Orbison's 1989 hit song, You Got It:

But I knew I had to play the bridge on the piano alone (no drums, guitars, etc.), so I imagined: what if I asked Michael McDonald to play a piano version of You Got It in the jaunty, jazzy, playful piano style of his mega-hit song, What a Fool Believes?

So that was the concept in my head as I composed the main part of that first version of the bridge:

I still needed to musically segue from the chorus to this "bridge core", and then back to the chorus after the "bridge core", so I drew on more Beatle-like piano chords:

I really like that playful version of the bridge! But the more I listened to it, the more I felt the key mood of the bridge lyrics was "loving", rather than "playful". So I decided to take the same melody and chords, but arrange them in a more sweet, tender, flowing piano arrangement and singing style, which is what appears in the final version of the song:

So in the final song: moody verses, hopeful chorus, and loving bridge. And interestingly, I think I had to create the playful version of the bridge first, in order to arrive at the loving version.

Aural delight in Caedyn's lyrics: internal rhymes, alliteration, and poetry. As a songwriter, I really enjoyed the process of taking Caedyn's lyrics and crafting music to fit them. Here's one reason why.

One of the main goals of good songwriting is to bring pleasure to the listener's ears through sound. Of course, the music is a huge part of that. But so are the lyrics. Lyrics don't only tell stories or communicate information. They also create sounds through the choice and placement of words, and the choice and order of words can bring pleasure to the listener's ears. Rhyming words are a familar way lyrics can bring aural pleasure: the ears pick up and delight in the rhyme. But there are other ways lyrics can do that, and I very much enjoyed all the ways Caedyn's lyrics did that.

Internal rhymes. In addition to the usual rhymes at the end of lines, Caedyn created "internal rhymes" and sprinkled them here and there in his lyrics. Here are some examples:

Wherever these internal rhymes appeared, I shaped the melody and my singing voice to really highlight the rhyming sounds, so listeners could enjoy them as much as I did.

Alliteration. Another source of aural delight in Caedyn's lyrics is alliteration. Rhymes are when the words at the end of lines sound similar. Alliteration is when sounds or letters at the beginning of nearby words sound similar. Here are some nice examples from the lyrics:

Poetic turn of phrase. Ordinary rhymes, internal rhymes and alliteration all create aural delight by creating sound patterns which the human ear detects and takes pleasure in. A poetic turn of phrase creates aural pleasure by using words in ways that are novel and unexpected; a poetic turn of phrase is something you don't hear in ordinary conversation or read in ordinary writing. Here are my favorites from Caedyn's lyrics: