You Don’t Look At Me Anymore - Behind the Music
The story behind the song
You Don’t Look at Me Anymore is not one of those songs that needs a lot of explanation or interpretation. It’s one of the few songs I’ve written that is completely literal. When I play it, I think of the Barbara Streisand duet, “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers Anymore.” Every artist has a song about love fading away, and this is mine.
I do appreciate the double entendre of the line, “I don’t know what we’re fighting for anymore.” In the first chorus, it’s meant to mean, “I don’t know why we’re fighting.” Whereas, in the second chorus, it’s meant to mean, “For what are we fighting?” We’re both fighting against each other and for this relationship, but is it what we want to fight for?
The concept of invisibility is something I’ve struggled with all my life. There are times when I wanted to be invisible (you’ll hear that referenced in Less Ain’t More), and times, especially after I became a mom, that I felt invisible to the world. Coworkers, men, my husband, and friends started to think of me differently. I was a mom now, and whatever preconceived notions they had about what that’s supposed to be got projected onto me. Invitations disappear, promotions get overlooked, and my husband and I were just plain exhausted.
When I did finally re-enter the world, I started getting noticed again, and that’s when I realized I wasn’t getting attention from the person I wanted it from most. I may not be the best at expressing my feelings, but I know that hearing me sing this song helped us through that time. In the beginning, I would play it soft enough so he wouldn’t hear upstairs. And I felt guilty about how it might make him feel to share it.
This song was written for me so it’s hard to share, but that is part of the challenge of art.
Production
Well, if you think producing a simple vocal and piano track is easy, think again! I thought this song would take me a week to record and produce, maximum, but it took over a month.
Piano
First, well, I recorded the piano on my Yamaha P-116 Digital Piano (best ever!). It really does have all the richness of an acoustic piano with more of the control of the notes being in tune, no tinniness I might get in certain spots, and a consistent sound that is difficult to mic on an acoustic piano.
However, I recorded it into Garageband before setting the time signature and key signature, which, at least for the time signature, is apparently irreversible! So I had to record it all over again. Lesson learned.
Vocals
Then I was testing my vocals and decided to drop the key down a third from C to Ab so I can consistently hit the high notes and get more of the richness of my vocals in the lower notes. I love that self-producing allows me to write in whatever key is best for my voice, instead of having to work through someone else’s best key.
I think I did about 40 or so takes on the vocals. I am still getting used to the best mic placement for my voice and singing in my studio voice rather than my Broadway belt. Belting is one of my strong suits, but to get a good balance, it’s hard to belt in some areas and also get the richness and round tones in other areas. At some point, I am going to have to consider using a dynamic mic rather than a cardioid to match my vocal needs.
Samples:
I tried to include a field recording of my house in this mix. I thought it would be cool to hear me coming in late at night, pouring a glass of water, and going to the piano before the song started. So I used my iPhone to test it, and the recording was good enough to use in the song, so I added it before and after. It took me about two days to get this in there but when I shared it with my mom, she said, “Did you know you had the mic on before the song started?” While I was honored that she thought I actually just rolled up to my piano and sang and played this in one take, since it sounded more like a mistake, I scrapped it.
It did open my eyes to what I can do in the album to make it special. I want to include field recordings in between songs that will create a storyline of a typical day in my life to tie te songs together and create a full experience.
Mix
An ongoing challenge is learning how to best mix my vocals considering the wide range of dynamics. While I don’t want to lose the dynamics of the song, I need to control the high peaks and raise the lows.
I learned after about 100 iterations that no, you really can not correct a vocal take that is clipping! I didn’t know how to be sure it was clipping and not just a glottal stop in my vocals. When I finally zoomed in all the way in my DAW, I saw where it was clipping and tried to correct it but, nope! I finally chose another take and having done that sooner, I could have saved about ten hours.
Consistently “Oooh” sounds come out too soft and have to be raised. I have to put a strong de-esser on my vocals which takes out the “S” sound. I try to work on this in the recording stage, but it sounds like I have a lisp instead.
My EQ is a slight raise in the mids and lows, and fully cut the highs at 10k which helps with the S’s and any annoying screeching in my upper register. But I have to make sure I don’t lower the highs too much or I will sound like I’m underwater very quickly. Very little compression and pitch correction on my vocals so it doesn’t sound plastic.
The overall sound is that I’m playing piano in a large room by myself and the natural echo of the room is apparent. So I used a “jazz club” plugin on the piano and added some platinum reverb on my vocals. I learned that my vocal reverb needs to be mostly dry to get the tone I like.
At the height of the chorus, I added some more obvious reverb and increased the tail to make it sound like my voice was echoing up the staircase. To be honest, that weekend I was blasting The Bangles Eternal Flame, and it definitely influenced this mix!
Mastering
The mastering was done by CD Baby. They have been doing a great job with my special request to master one song at a time but knowing they will be on the same album. When the whole album is mastered at the end, it will correct any differences in volume from song to song.
Overall, I’m very happy with how this moved from a song to an experience. In just 2:30 mins I feel I’ve successfully taken the listener on a journey. I have a much better appreciation for music production and what’s possible. I will also never listen to music without headphones or great speakers again :) You really lose so much of the detail! Hopefully, this breakdown will help you appreciate it as well.
Lyrics
I can walk across the room, you don’t even notice me.
What do I have to do to be seen?
I can buy a new dress to try to impress you,
But then you ask me why I’m trying so hard, oh,
Guess you didn’t see me crying…no, no.
And you, you don’t look at me like you love me, anymore.
And you, you don’t look at me like you want me, anymore.
And I, I don’t know what we’re fighting for anymore.
Anymore.
You don’t wait up for me like you used to before
And when I sing too loud you shut the door.
I want a man, I want a man, I want a man who’ll wait up for me all night
I want a man, I want a man, I want a man who’ll stand up for me and fight the fight.
And you, you don’t look at me like you love me, anymore.
And you, you don’t look at me like you want me, anymore.
And I, I don’t know what we’re fighting for, anymore.
Anymore.
And you… you don’t look at me…
You don’t look at me anymore.
Anymore
COPYRIGHT JESSICA PAIGE MAGOCH, ASCAP
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