If You Could Only See is on my Found My Way album – released 2019.
Listen
If You Could Only See is on Spotify.
Lyrics
My fingers hold no plectrum,
See them stretch out, see them beckon
Communication, without speaking,
Leaves me breathless, feel me freaking
Out on you, as I feel you next to me.
And I want you, if only you could see.Your eyelids still flutter,
Like a dance with no structure
Separation, without meeting,
Churns my feelings, however fleeting
I see it all in a different light tonight
And I believe in love, thought I’d never get it right.My innocence incenses me, I’m losing all my mind
Your deference references me, But only when I find.
I’m falling down on you, Falling down on youIt’s getting late now, I should hurry,
But then you tell me, no need to worry
If I can’t see you, how can I reach you,
Trusting my instincts, that’s what you would do
When you’re not here, the lights go dim, you hold the key
And I want you, if only you could see.Copyright 2019 Graham Armfield
Watch
A live version of If You Could Only See is not on YouTube yet. I’m hoping there will be one soon.
Song history
The song started life with the bassline for the verses which came out when practising the bass for recording other tracks on the Found My Way album.
Looping the bass on my laptop I started to work out what else could be there on my acoustic guitar, and the simple chord structure for the verse came quite quickly. I’d been experimenting with finger picking the guitar instead of using a plectrum or pick and the gentle arpeggios seemed to fit nicely.
The finger picking style also gave rise to the start of the lyrics in the first verse. Then the reaching out and beckoning line suggested the way the story in the song was going to play out – as a plea for communication that wasn’t happening as expected.
It was at this point that I realised that the key for the song was a bit low for my voice, so out came the capo to bring it all up into my range. I even used the capo on the bass too, otherwise the bass part would be quite tricky to play.
The extra section towards the end of each verse (Out on you, as I feel you next to me) came as a result of trying to vary the chords a bit, but still paving a way back into the next verse.
Near the end of the writing process, the bridge (My innocence incenses me…) came out as another experiment with varying the chords but keeping a constant bass note.
Joanna Lawrence playing violin in the studio.Then I had the idea of adding a string part. My friend Joanna Lawrence is a good violin player, and she agreed to play on the track. So I wrote out my ideas and she did a great job as you can hear on the recording.
Playing this song live on my own presents a bit of a challenge as the guitar doesn’t really enter until the second verse, and the bass part is key. I do have a backing track of the bass part with percussion from the album recording which I need to perform against, so maybe I will perform it at open mic nights in future.
Download from Bandcamp
If You Could Only See is available to download from Bandcamp.
