As she was pulling together song ideas for what would become the album, Paper Airplane, Alison asked me to come up with a song that was structurally similar to a pop song she’d heard that had the same chord progression within the verses and choruses. A song that evolved from one central idea into something bigger once the chorus came along. I thought I might have something like that.
For the past 20 years or so, I’ve kept a midi sequencer on hand so that I could record any idea I came up with – good or bad. I wanted to be able to quickly refer back to anything I had that I thought was interesting. I have piles and piles of CDs and MP3 files with these ideas stemming back to 1991. The tune that would become “Lie Awake” was among these. The original idea was written in 2002, and it was just a little drum part, a piano melody and a bass line. I came up with the verse melody, and then came up with something that could go a little higher and more spelled out in the chorus.
While I worked on the melody, Alison was trying to figure out who could write the words. After our initial conversation about the song, she came across this lyricist and amazing singer, Angel Snow. Upon meeting Angel at a friend’s house, Alison called me and said, “I think I’ve found your lyricist!” She read me some of Angel’s written words over the phone and I thought, ‘this is some serious stuff.’ Somebody once told me that my music is kind of ‘pensive’ and I wasn’t exactly sure what to make of that. Gradually, I became more comfortable with the description and thought that Angel’s lyric fit perfectly into this one tune. I added some guitar to my original sequence file since Angel’s music is guitar-based, and we set up a time to meet.
When we got together for the first time, I played her this particular song and the melodies that I’d come up with based on this one chord progression. Within seconds, she had a first verse. It was amazing. What she had come up with within the first few minutes of us writing together is more or less what ended up being the finial version of the first verse. Since it was our first time writing together, we finished the first verse on paper and parted ways without recording anything. I called Alison and read her the lyrics and she asked, “Did you record it?” I said ‘no’, and Alison replied, “You have to record it!”
I called Angel back and set up a time for us to get back together to record. As I was getting the track set up, she was listening to it and by the time we were ready to record, had the second verse written. We made an initial recording of the song and I sent it to Alison. She absolutely loved it.
The final Alison Krauss & Union Station version of Lie Awake is not that different from what Angel and I had come up with initially, which is very flattering. Since then, Angel and I have written a lot of music together. Two other songs we wrote together (These Days, A Place Outside) ended up on the Target special edition of Paper Airplane, which was also very exciting.
-Viktor Krauss
Click to stream Viktor's original midi sequence of the chord progression for "Lie Awake"
"Lie Awake" Lyrics
Angel Snow/Viktor Krauss
I want to run away
Don’t come out looking round
Too busy dealing with it on my own
He’s right behind me
Please God I can’t be found
Don’t cast another stone
Feel out the night, until the sunrise
The City tells me not to go ‘til dawn
And if he wakes that’s when my heart breaks
And I’m as good as gone
How do I lie awake now
When I know I’ve got to be moving on
How do I lie awake now
When nothing’s right and nothing’s wrong
And in the end
Will we make amends
Just like we’re face to face another dawn
And in the light, or when the moon shines
Will you take me on home
How do I lie awake now
When I know I’ve got to be moving on
How do I lie awake now
When nothing’s right and nothing’s wrong
To find out more information on Angel Snow, please visit http://angelsnow.net/
To find out more information on Viktor Krauss, please visit http://viktorkrauss.com/