I’m currently (somewhat belatedly) showcasing each track from my latest album Coming Home in a “behind the song” blog series. I hope some listeners find it interesting or helpful. “Come Back Around” is the second track. For convenience, the lyrics and YouTube & Spotify streams are at the bottom of this post.
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This is one of two songs on the album that were actually written in 2020; the rest were written over the summer/early autumn of 2021, not too long before I recorded and released it.
This one went on an interesting journey because I wrote it when I was planning a trip to London… for May 2020. Obviously, that never happened. Then, when I actually did release the song, I was days away from actually going to London. That nerve-racking trip (right when omicron hit) was a whole other story, but the point is, it was cool to finally release a song about a trip to London right before I was actually taking one. The lyrics are not explicitly about a trip to London, anyway. They are mainly about being excited for a flight, which could even be taken as a metaphorical one, I suppose.
The idea came to me on the swings. Yes, I still sometimes swing on the playground swings, at night when no one’s around. (It’s okay, everyone thinks I’m a teenager anyway.) It makes me feel like a kid again, and it lets me feel that simple excitement again, that doesn’t have to be based on something big and profound, just everyday life. Getting into that mindset and watching a plane go by made me even more excited than usual to be going back to London, my favorite place.
I immediately had the first verse and chorus lyrics as you hear them now, as well as a second verse that I was never very happy with. I did write the little two-line bridge shortly afterwards. I was happy with my original melody, but I wrote it in the same batch of songs with “Better,” and after releasing the latter, I realized the two songs’ melodies were too similar. So that was one of those songs that felt stuck, and I procrastinated and eventually set it aside.
I don’t think I realized until I finally committed to finishing it, that I was probably putting it off because of the pain of cancelling that trip and losing out on that whole flood of positive feelings I had been anticipating. It suddenly became much easier, pretty much effortless, to make the necessary tweaks when I had a new trip planned. There were no big or complicated changes I needed to make; I just had not wanted to engage with that song for a while. So I finally tweaked the melody to differentiate it a little bit more, and I rewrote the second verse lyrics so that I liked them.
Like most of my songs, I kept this one simple, but I did fill it out a little bit with electric guitar and subtle harmonies, shakers, and a little bit of drums. As usual, the percussion was virtual. Aside from the fact that the production (and some of the performance) could be a little bit more professional, this is a simple song that I’m happy with. I wrote it for a specific emotion and moment, and it did its job as a song.
LYRICS
I’m swinging on a swingset like a little kid
Soaring through the air
A plane goes by, my mind goes wandering
I dream of anywhere
In four short months I’ll be up there
Soaring high above the ocean
And my whole life’s up in the air
And every option’s open
I’ve waited my whole damn life to be up there
My whole damn life, for it to come back around
I’ll be walking through the streets of the city once again
Smile at everyone
I know I’m never gonna regret
A day I spent out and having fun
And someday this will be a distant memory
And I’ll have all I ever wanted in my hands
In four short months I’ll be up there
In four short months, it’s gonna come back around