Into the Weeds
№98 — Once More with Feeling (demo)
organizing an accident is a weekly newsletter where I leak home demos of unreleased songs, first draft lyrics, thoughts on the creative process, & dispatches from music life in Paris.
Listen to “Once More with Feeling” (demo):
This song was written on August 24, 2023
This is demo leak #98
Greetings from Paris,
It has been forty days and nights since we last saw the sun. Every morning, an impenetrable gray light merges with the building facades, creating the illusion that we live in a cloud. Everyone I know has been ill for weeks, and I’m putting on winter weight before December. Send help.
☁️
But now, some good news: the sun cracked through this morning, the sky is blue, and my dad is in town. Also, today is demo leak no. 98.
For organizing an accident, I’m always digging deeper into the weeds of my rough sketches and first takes, reluctant at times to share phone recordings, my cracked voice, or lyrical gibberish. But it would be a dishonest representation of the songwriting process if I were to only share the most polished, complete demos from my back catalog.
“Once More with Feeling” is a song written in the summer of 2023 and captured live from a piano bench in Normandy. The lyrics are mostly placeholder ideas that I’ve been meaning to revisit—an obligatory rewrite to provide a story deserving of the music. My intention was to address our universal experience of regret after losing someone we love—that unique opportunity for self-reflection when left all alone, our faults as glaringly painful as the heartbreak. Written like a love letter that might begin with, “Now that I know who I could’ve been without you…,” the song is a plea for forgiveness and an admission of wrongdoing.
I’m pleading to you
Once more with feeling
‘Cause I can’t lose you
All at once
It’s fleeting
But some love bears repeating
And I just can’t lose you
All at once
From the Vault
What I’m listening to this week
What I’ve been reading
David Mamet - True and False
Check out my previous demos and writing via the Substack archive + discover my official music releases on Spotify, Apple, or your platform of choice. Find me on all socials at @thisryanegan.
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