Straight out of Wales, Draw Me Stories has been categorized as an “electronic folk” band, which are two genres you normally don’t see side by side. However, this band is making it work beautifully. The band’s new album Cocoon Machina was released February 4th and lead singer/guitarist, Carl Hodgetts, has taken us through the story of writing the final song on the album. He tells us, “I have chosen the final song on the album – ‘Blood Follows Grain, Grain Follows Blood’ (BFG) – because, to me, it epitomises the song writing approach on our new album Cocoon Machina.” Check out the interesting background behind “Blood Follows Grain, Grain Follows Blood” as well as the lyrics below and a stream of the track here.
Background
“When I was younger, I would always write the lyrics, melody and chord patterns together on an acoustic guitar; the song structure could be essentially mapped out at this stage. This method, however, is not ideally suited to creating an album as a band, where we want the music and the different instruments to be unconstrained.
With BFG, we developed a concept of how the song should feel (and progress) before any lyrics were written. Primarily, we wanted it to be stripped back — based, at its core, around drums, electronic textures and percussion (with the guitar and bass adding colour in later sections). We decided that we wanted the song to contain a ‘three-layered chorus’, with each one fooling the listener into thinking that the song’s high-point had been reached. Initially, therefore, I set about creating three melodies that could do this.
For many weeks I sang nonsense words and bizarre sentences in places where words should be (one could argue that I do this regardless). Eventually, I had a strong melody and a starting point for the lyrics.
With a melody and song structure in place, I had to write a set of lyrics that could stand alone. After many weeks I decided to try and write something about an old antique toy that acquires language. I felt that the concept of language acquisition allowed me to explore a wide range of ideas that are tied up in language itself: perception, space, doubt, faith, and so on. Importantly, I felt it was ‘fundamental’ and thus fitted the grand feel of the melody and instrumentation.
One night, with the help of a few ales, I managed to write the whole thing – without guitar – by just focussing on the melody and rhythm. The opening verse sets the scene by describing the inanimate toy, which then comes to life and grows a tongue. The rest of the song describes the transformation in its experience, i.e., the formation of concepts and labels, the learning of new information from books, etc. Also, with these new powers comes a level of self-awareness, which in turn brings crippling doubts and a deeper understanding of its own fear. “Tree is calm” is perhaps the most poignant line for me, because it implies that inanimate things, or non-sentient life, are somehow free from the destructive forces that accompany intelligence and complex language.
This was one of the nicest songs to write and my favourite song on the album.”
Lyrics
The wooden toy with hollow eyes,
All in all,
Windowless.
Grows its tongue and learns to speak,
Opens its eyes.
Colours collide and captivate
In the space between heaven and earth.
Drawing breath from the pages of books,
Walking the path to the understood,
A heart now sits beneath inches of wood,
Blood follows grain, grain follows blood.
But to understand is to burn these hands,
To walk upside down,
Feel the blood rushing down.
Words they drop like bombs,
Blowing earth and soil away,
Echoes create the song,
And from the earth walks man.
Limbs they grow and split apart,
Fingers feel water.
The paper scroll unravels on,
The room it grows.
A room for God and a room for fear,
Tree is calm.
