Eight Million Ways (To Be Alone) - A New Song
In 2019, I started a big push to write songs and I did pretty well with it for a while. I had a lot of ideas saved up and I just kept ‘working with what’s in front of me,’ a concept that I employ sometimes to keep the flow going. Of course, I was looking for new ideas, too. But around Christmas time, things got a little derailed as they will.
When covid hit, my band Saints and Sinners had just started a new residency at The Shrine, but that all went out the window, of course. So I began the writing sessions again. This new song, “Eight Million Ways (To Be Alone),” is a product of that second group of sessions.
Eight Million Ways (To Be Alone)
I had the title hanging around for years but the music came along in 2020 and I thought it was a good match. The chords are an extension of a tune that has haunted and saved me before with its soulful gospel roots and aching desire. The lyrics describe the universal feeling of being alone in a teeming metropolis, even one as large and diverse as New York City. They suggest that there’s a little bit of that loneliness in us all. The strings evoke Al Green or Curtis Mayfield but also Nick Drake and the Left Banke, originators of the chamber pop style. I’m looking for a soul singer that can do the song justice and hopefully collaborate with me in the future. Here’s looking forward to the future, everybody!
Copywrite 2020 Christian Botta
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