Single of the Month - August 2022 - "Kingdom Come"
As revealed in my first podcast, the process of making Branches Breaking from the Weight was different from making Loving Every Other Minute of It. On the previous album, I was the sole songwriter on every song save “Johnny Marr,” for which I shared credit with Brian Blush. Bret and Kevin both had tons to do with the making of that earlier record, but the board swath of songwriting credit fell to me.
For this album, Bret and Kevin started the songwriting process by recording “hunks,” of pieces of music for me to write over. I’d get a handful of hunks, each consisting of a couple of parts—say, a verse and a chorus—and my job was to arrange these parts, add a bridge if necessary, lay down bass, and write lyrics and melody lines. It took about a month to turn each hunk into something resembling a song. Then I’d send the song back to Bret and Kevin, who’d finish it.
When I got the first batch of hunks, there were a few that were clearly rockers and one more acoustic-based track. I was someone on the wrong side of 50 who’d sat out making music for most of the previous decade. I wasn’t ready for a rocker.
Which brings me to “Kingdom Come,” the Single of the Month from Branches Breaking from the Weight for August.
The acoustic hunk felt very R.E.M./Counting Crows to me, making it more approachable than the AC/DC hunks that surrounded it. These latter hunks were great—one of them eventually became “Strut”—but I needed to get my feet wet before jumping into the deep end. Also, this acoustic hunk already had three cool parts, so there wasn’t a need for me to get out the guitar and write music. It was ready to go.
I arranged the three parts the way I thought they should go—verse, prechorus, chorus, verse, prechorus, bridge, chorus, solo, prechorus, bridge, chorus, solo out—and I sat there on my couch in my office and hummed/mumbled over this new arrangement.
What should I sing? If I ever think about it, it’s a problem. If I just do it, it rarely is.
When the part I heard as the chorus arrived, I noticed a book on my shelf called The Kingdom by Emmanuel Carrère. Out of my mouth came, “Kingdom come, and they come back home.” I thought it was a funny way to deliver the line—oddly uptight, maybe with a British inflection, maybe a Native American one. I pictured some army coming home from battle, singing this refrain as the sun set in the background. What did it mean? I didn’t know, but I liked it.
What came together after that was a song about committing yourself deeply to some cause, then finding out that you may have overcommitted. Jobs, relationships, political campaigns, it happens to all kinds of people in a broad range of pursuits. We have to follow our passions in life, but there comes a point when we have to come home and reevaluate. Following a pursuit for a long time without coming home to reevaluate means you’re in a cult.
To that foundation, Bret added all that gorgeous guitar work, and the trippy backing vocal stuff in the bridge is Kevin. This is also my favorite drum track on the album, which is Kevin, too.
So, the overall vibe of “Kingdom Come” is a little ominous, but hopefully not too ominous.
See and hear the Single of the Month performed from the comfort of your home at my once-a-month Bandcamp acoustic concert series Budapalooza, which falls this time on September 23rd at 5 PM PST. RSVP!