I’m delighted to announce the arrival of Songs from the Soul; my first download album. Always one to do my own thing, I decided to put together a set of songs and make them available here on my own music website. That said there are a few people who I owe my thanks to…that I’ll mention in just a moment. The last time I put together a set of songs was over 10 years ago when I was recording tracks with my friend Kevin Arnold. Back then I was pursuing music as a career and our first few demos were actually sent out to record labels on cassette – wow, frightening to think about the sound quality. I also remember when we put together our first demo on CD which was called Music is the Power. You can hear that track and some others that Kev and I wrote on my YouTube Channel .
But Songs from the Soul is pretty much as it sounds… songs that that come from within, from the self. They tell the story of the journey of finding oneself. The collection begins with Soul Mate (which you can hear on the music player here) it’s a song that’s dear to me that I wrote back in 2000 or 2001 – it remains one of my favourate if not my favourate song. Be Something the second track was written soon after. I love the naive, honest, youthfulness of the songs seeking and wanting to attain something. Live before we Die was inspired by a dream – there’s a seperate blog about that – but lyrically it speaks for itself. It’s one of the first times you hear the gorgeous strings sounds that John Hamilton has created on tracks throughout the album. Love is the Answer is next – you hear the uptempo mix first, brilliantly produced by Rene Coffey. I originally wrote this as a ballad – and I originally wrote it for a friend who was a gifted singer and has gone on to achieve some success, however but who never recorded it … so I decided to.World Full or Wonder and Return to Love are next on the collection. The latter song opens with a beautiful piano intro by John Hamilton from EQ studios who produced the album and played most of the instruments. It starts with the lines “It seems to me we live through dreams and dream through life – will we float away through space and time?” The next Track is “Love Me” which was written much later. It’s uptemp and makes me smile as there’s a little humour in It and plays with contrasts.
Just Smile is -again- one of the more recently written tracks and was the last song to be completed even through we strated work on it some time ago. It’s a ballad that evolves into a waltz. But after starting recording it I felt there was something missing and left it for a while. Eventually I realised the album didn’t have much of the more fun, playful side of life or myself – and the song could evolve to reflect what it was expressing. So the reprise style outro brings on the party. Again you can hear that track here on the website music player. Thanks to Andrew Peace for the additional guitar licks at the end. Help Me, Find Me, is another uptempo number. It’s really about one having a conversation with your wiser inner self; a bit like a question and answer session Q: “The question is who am?”, A “Now your asking… ready to look inside? See what’s lasting.” It’s one of the first times I’ve ‘conciously’ brought the themes that I express as a speaker / inner fuifilment specialist with the music – although in truth I’ve learned that they’ve never been seperate. Sooner or Later is about the nature, flow and seasons of life, space and time – it’s frank rather than sentimental. It’s always great fun creating all the voices that I use vocally on a track.
The collection begins to draw to a close with a timely reminder While Life Passes By which you can again hear on the music player here… “And it’s not what you have, it’s not what you hide, or the things that you lack, our the stuff you aquire… meanwhile life passes by.” Again there’s a blog about that song here if you’d like to know more about it. The collection closes with the ballad version of ‘Love is the Answer’. The songs lyric was original written biographically to fit the singer who I wrote it for and their life. When I decided to record it I decided I needed to add a little someting to the bridge/break “And this great mystery that brought me hear well I may never know….” It’s an apt song to end the set as it brings together the personal with the universal – something I always love playing with on songs. I love for a song to be as deep or superficial, as personal, inter-presonal or universal as the listener chooses to hear it – and as it is apt for them.
Thanks / credits
All songs written and sung by Rasheed Ogunlaru © Rasheed Ogunlaru 2012.Big thanks to Marcin for the cover image and for the fab video for Love is the Answer. Thanks again to Rene and to Steve.
The biggest thanks go to John Hamilton. John was a joy to find some years ago when we met at an event. He ran a studio and I told him I was a coach/speaker with background as a singer. He invited me to his studio and soon after we started recording. Soul Mate I think was the first we worked on. I’d come in playing the chords and singing the track in question or just playing it on my recorder or sounding the melody lines with my voice. The instrumentation you hear – except the uptemo mix of Love is the Answer which Rene created and produced – is John. The magical thing is that he created what I hear in my head and could hear the bits I didn’t. he’s a joy to work with a complete professional. He’s also had a few hit records so he knows his stuff.
Anyway I hope you enjoy the album and the tracks that you can hear here.