Let’s talk in bahasa Indonesia. I want to tell a story about this song, and because the song it self is basically in bahasa Indonesia and full of metaphors, and because of it I think it’s appropriate to talk in Indonesia. Before we continue, I want to sum up a little bit about the story of this song. The song tells you a story about hopes and dreams.

Let’s begin.

The lyrics:

Awan

[Verse]
Andai ku dapat terbang
Terbang tinggi di awan
Kan ku temani sang surya
Andai ku dapat terbang

[Bridge]
A a a…

[Verse]
Andai ku dapat terbang
menjelajahi alam
menyatukan siang malam
Andai ku dapat .. a .. a .. ah

[Chorus]
Andai ku dapat menempuh di awan
kan ku jelang temaram
karena esok kan datang

Andai ku dapat menempuh di awan
kan ku jelang sang surya
Andai ku dapat terbang

[Verse]
Andai ku dapat terbang
Jauh tinggi di awan
Menghempas ruang dan waktu
Andai ku dapat terbang

[Bridge]
A a a…

[Chorus]
Andai ku dapat menempuh di awan
kan ku jelang temaram
ku tak akan menghilang

Andai ku dapat menempuh di awan
kan ku jelang sang surya
bila esok menghilang

Andai ku dapat menempuhi awan
kan ku jeram temaram
ku tak akan tenggelam

Andai ku dapat menempuhi awan
kan ku song-song sang surya
Andai ku dapat terbang

The story:

Kalau tidak salah ingat, lagu ini aku tulis ketika aku masih duduk di bangku kuliah, sekitar tahun 2004-2005. Pada waktu aku mencoba menulis lagu ini, aku sedang tidak sedang bersedih atau bergembira. Oleh karena itu, lagu ini memiliki suasana mengambang baik dari segi lirik maupun dari segi notasi nadanya.

Aku ingat sekali, awal aku menulis lagu ini, waktu itu pukul 11 malam dan saat itu aku sedang menonton sebuah film di TV, aku tidak ingat judul film-nya tapi tiba2 terlintas sebuah kata dan nada di pikiran kata-kata itu ‘Andai ku dapat terbang, terbang tinggi di awan’ dan selanjutnya semuanya tiba-tiba mengalir begitu saja.

Masih pada malam itu juga, entah kenapa lagu ini tidak bisa lepas dipikiran, agar keesokan harinya aku tidak lupa, aku pun menulis di selembar kertas. Aku pun berfikir, “mau dikasih judul apa ya?”. Tiba2 ketika membaca lirik awalnya terlintas kata “Awan” dan aku merasa kata tersebut sangat cocok untuk menjadi judul lagu ini.

Lalu apa yang terjadi? Keesokan harinya aku benar2 melupakan lagu ini. Bahkan nadanya sendiri hampir saja aku lupa. Namun anehnya beberapa minggu kemudian, tiba2 aku teringat lirik dan nada lagu ini. Lalu aku putuskan untuk melanjutkan menulis lagunya.

Saat itu, aku bingung dengan liriknya. Sebenarnya sejak awal lagu ini belum memiliki konsep ceritanya. Sehingga untuk lirik selanjutnya aku tulis sekenanya saja. Dan sekali lagi aku melupakan lagu ini hingga beberapa tahun yg lalu ketika awal2 aku memulai pengerjaan proyek FortuneCookids ini, disaat aku mencari2 lagu2 apa yg bisa aku bikin demonya akhirnya aku teringat kembali dengan lagu ini.

Pada saat itulah aku mulai membuat tema untuk lagu ini, temanya sendiri tentang mimpi yg diibaratkan sebagai awan. Tiba-tiba lirik-lirik yang terdahulu menjadi masuk akal. Mimpinya yang ingin aku ceritakan adalah mimpi untuk mempopulerkan karya-karya FortuneCookids, tapi secara sadar aku tahu mimpi itu tidak akan menjadi karena aku hanya bisa berharap, tepat seperti yang aku katakan dalam liriknya “Andaiku dapat terbang”.

Selain itu ada perumpamaan-perumpamaan lainnya seperti dimana aku ibaratkan langit sebagai kancah permusikan *halah*, dan yang selama ini aku butuhkan adalah seorang pembimbing yang ku andaikan, dalam hal ini “Sang Surya”. Yang aku suka dari lirik lagu ini adalah liriknya terdengar sangat sederhana yang sebenarnya penuh metafora. Bukan mau terkesan jenius, tapi memang aku membuatnya seperti itu.

Ada banyak lagi perumpamaan-perumpamaan yang aku sisipkan pada keseluruhan lirik ini. Namun beberapa metafora di atas sudah cukup menjelaskan keseluruhan isi lagu ini.

And lets get back to English.

The Voice:

I don’t know why my voice sound absolutely horrible in this song. I absolutely sure, this song have very flat notes in it but my voice sound flatter than the real notes. Maybe it’s because I use double voice, or maybe I just sang badly in this song.

The Music:

As for the music, I want to add funk feeling to this song, so I works hard on how the bass and the guitar should sound like. I even add extra layering to the drums. At the end this is one of the richest music that I ever made so far (I think).

Lets here this depressing new songs that I wrote 2 years ago. Try to read the whole lyrics and try to find the meaning of that simple lyrics. And I Hope you’ll like it, because even though this is not one of my favorites song, I always listen to this song when I feel that my life is a little bit low.

Life is Love

[Verse]

Life is crazy.
Life is short.
You can get what you wanted for,
but you can’t be sure.

[Bridge]

After all this years
of sleepless nights.
Maybe,
I’m not the one you love, you know.

After all the pains
you caused inside.
Maybe I’m not,
Baby I’m not.

[Verse]

Slow down maybe,
you running too fast.
I don’t want to bother
but I can’t keep up.

[Bridge]

After all this years
of sleepless nights.
But why,
You always asking more from me.

And after all the pains
you caused inside.
Maybe I’m not,
Baby I’m not.

[Chorus]

If life is easy to find.
You said, life is easy to find.

Can you tell me why
my broken heart
is growing fast
but it’s bleeding now?

And if life is easy to find
just find me another one.
Hu hu hu hu
just find me another one.
Hu hu hu hu

[Verse]

Life is crazy.
crazy short.
I don’t want to listen,
If you want it more.

[Bridge]

After all the pains
you caused inside.
Baby,
I’m not the one you used to know.

After all this years
and days and nights.
Maybe I’m not,
Baby I’m not.

[Chorus]

If life is easy to find.
You said, life is easy to find.

Can you tell me why
my broken heart
is growing fast
but it’s bleeding now?

And if life is easy to find
(just find me another one.)

If life is easy to find.
(just find me another one.)
You said, life is easy to find.
(just find me another one.)

Can you tell me why
my broken heart
is growing fast
but it’s bleeding now?

And if life is easy to find
just find me another one.
hu hu hu hu.
just find me another one.
hu hu hu hu.

The Story:

I wrote this song two years ago when I feels that my life is going nowhere. Although I’m not too depress at that time, but with the way I wrote and compose this song feels like it’s the most depressing song I ever wrote.

I began to wrote this songs when I feels that my life is too flat, my works life is going nowhere and to add more pain, I have a very lonely social life at that time. What I feels when I wrote this song is I had give everything that I can do to makes everyone happy but at the end it doesn’t meet everyone expectation. And that the essence of this song, the feeling that I unable to fulfill everyone expectation even tough I think I had gave my best.

To add more fun to this song, I write down this demo album’s tittle inside this songs chorus. But still, it’s a very depressing song (not sad just depressing).

The Music:

To tell you the truth, I got inspiration to wrote this song when I heard one of Will Young‘s song. At the end it have the same tempo as Will Young’s song.

And for the music it self, at the time I compose the music, I’m too depress to compose using more than 3 music instrument. As simple as the song’s note, I compose this song using very simple approach that is the first note of a line is the instrument’s key note.

If you had heard the song, I only use three of my favorite instrument, they are drum, piano and violin. For me the violin is the hero of this song’s music. Without it, the music would be very bland with already bland music.

What I want to achieve with this simple music are the loneliness and the desperation that I feels when I wrote this song. I think the lack of music instrument contribute to the loneliness feels and the low and long violins sound contribute to the desperation feels of this song.

The Vocal:

This is the song that I only record once and then I use it. I even didn’t add filters to my voice, just my shaky voice. But somehow I like the shakiness vibe of my voice, and when you hear it carefully, you can almost hear me begging and crying.

(The Opposite Gender on SoundCloud) 

I remember when I was writing this song, I had this idea of creating an anthem song. A song that you can sing along when you’re feeling happy, a song that you can sing along to lift yourself from depression and a song that you can sing along even if you can’t sing. The premise is there but, can I execute that? Let’s hear the song.

The Lyrics:

The Opposite Gender

[Interlude]

I’m just a boy that can’t stand for a minute.
You just a girl that can stand for a minute.
It’s you that I adore, I control for a minute.
You that I adore, I control for a minute.

If I’m like a girl that can stand for a minute.
You like a boy that can’t stand for a minute.
You that I adore, I control for a minute.
You that I adore, I control for a minute.

[Bridge]

If I’m like a boy and you’re like a girl,
does it makes us norm?
Does it makes us strong?
Does it grow us faster?
Does it grow us larger?
Does it really matter
for the things that I adore?

[Chorus]

If I want to recognize you girl.
I want to impress you girl.
I want to embrace you girl.
I want to impress you.

Girl, don’t make me stop.
Girl, just stay awhile.
Girl, please bare with me
for the things that I adore.

(2x)

[Rhythm]

[Interlude]

I’m just a boy that can’t stand for a minute.
You just a girl that can stand for a minute.
It’s you that I adore, I control for a minute.
You that I adore, I control for a minute.

[Bridge]

If I’m like girl and you’re like boy,
does it makes us weird?
Does it makes us strong?
Does it grow us faster?
Does it grow us larger?
Does it really matter
for the things that I adore.

[Chorus]

If I want to recognize you girl.
I want to impress you girl.
I want to embrace you girl.
I want to impress you.

Girl, don’t make me stop.
Girl, just stay awhile.
Girl, please bear with me
for the things that I adore.

(2x)

[Bridge 2]

If I’m like a boy.
If I’m like a girl.
If I’m like them both.

Does it make me weird?
Does it make me wrong?
Does it make me norm?
Does it really matter
for the things that I adore?

[Chorus]

If I want to recognize you girl.
I want to impress you girl.
I want to embrace you girl.
I want to impress you.

Girl, don’t make me stop.
Girl, just stay awhile.
Girl, please bear with me
for the things that I adore.

(3x)

The Story:

When the first time I come out with this song, I was in the shower thinking about a girl that I used to like (and no, I’m not doing that ‘thing’ while in the shower), I really want to write a song to this girl. My mind start to explore, I began to think about how the story should be, then I come out with this simple and catchy tone that cheerleader used to sing. After that, I had this moment of ‘enlightenment’ where the song start to flow like a river (Actually, I always have this moment of ‘enlightenment’ when I wrote a good song).

Immediately, I began to think about the lyrics. I have this story on my mind that I had to translate and transform it to became lyrics. Because this song is about how I felt that day, I start the lyric with a simple sentence “I’m just a boy that can’t stand for a minute” because I remember the first time I have a crush on her is when I was younger.

The song is questioning on how to embrace a girl, a girl that might be to far to reach, because she is too pretty and too high class for me. At that time, I’m not the famous guy in school, instead, I’m just the nerdy guy. And although the girl knew I like her, she didn’t return the sign. Instead, she enjoy the situation and likes on how I kindly treat her. She even didn’t stop me for being foolish.

I decide to wrote a simple lyrics that simply hide the story behind it. I carefully choose every single word that absolutely cheesy when you first read it and absolutely makes none sense when you didn’t know what the story behind it.

The Vocal:

Oh my gosh, even though my voice sound horrible in this song, somehow I like how my voice sounds like. I try to record another one, but it seems that I can’t recreate a better vocal version for this song, so I leave it that away.

The Music:

As I mention earlier. For this song, I come out with a simple and catchy tunes that some people might find in cheesy, sissy, pussy or whatever they want to call it. At first I create the drum loop, a simple drum loop that you can find in almost pop songs. Then I create this simple bass tunes that abselutely easy to play. Somehow, from that simple bass tunes, I manage to create a more bass tunes that although it seem hard to play, it actually very easy when you know the notes. And then I added a very simple guitar sound to layer the Chorus part. And that’s it, I manage to create a full song with only 3 instrument.

With that simple lyrics, simple tunes and simple music, I’m hoping this song will be easy to listen and catchy enough to stuck in your mind.

This is basically a way of me to sum up everything I feel when I hate somebody. You can tell by the lyric that this song is about anger. The song it self is my interpretation of a song by Bryan Adams – Cloud Number 9.

IRL, I never this mad with somebody, I guess I’m such a nice guy. I create this song to channel all the anger toward somebody and basically it become my anger management.

The music: I remember several years ago, I had a tough about making a dance song with electronic sound all over the place, and then all the sudden I made this song into song that have very fast beat like all the dance song.

If you didn’t know, I’m also avid gamer. So, in this song’s music, I incorporate 8 bit sounds from old games such as Alien Invader and some generic 8 bit sound. I also use double drum to make the song more like dance song.

The Voice: In this song, some how I manage to make my voice clear to listen and doesn’t have many pitchy note. Overall, I like my voice in this song, maybe because the song itself have very simple note, with no so many high or low note.

Dumb
Moderato – 2/2

[Interlude]
You think you are right
You think you are smart
You think that you can leaving me
this on my own
Like you can take all the things you belong
Like you can take all the things you belong

And then you come back
like you never rejected and
you keep pushing me untill I fall back
you keep pushing me untill I fall black
you keep pushing me untill I fall blank

[Chorus]
What ever you might said
’cause it seems not enough
and I never even told you how much I love you
because I know that you’re not the only one

But you keep pushing me
Untill I falls down
and I never even told you how much I love you
because I know that you’re not the only one

Well, you can escape
from the words you just said
but you can not denail

This is how LMMS (Linux Multimedia System) comes handy. LMMS is a tools for creating music, it have piano roll, loop track, sound font support , etc etc. You might never heard this apps, but basically it have the same feature like any other music creation apps such as fruityloop and GarageBand, but it comes free of charge. The catch is, you had to install it on Linux (or windows, but it will crash a lot), hence the name it self.

What do I do in this apps? Basically, I put simple note  in it and I loop it, and then I put simple drum beat in it and I loop it, and so on and so on. Somehow, magically, it transforms into full band music, although the sound is a little bit electronic.

Beside LMMS, the hero of my music is an apps called ZynAddSubFx that basically the basic sounds of my music and also a collection of sound loop in a format called soundfont. That’s all, as simple as that.

This is a song about hesitation and how you can handle it. Well, have you ever feel like you are not the right one for her/him? Then this song is about it. Several year ago, one of my friend have this hesitation right before his wedding, a hesitation that every other man or woman had right before their big day. It’s a common problem.

I dedicate this song to my friend, because this is his story*. At the moment of his, I know he is going to be fine. And now everything just end up to be fine. Again, this song tell the story about it and how we can resolve the problem by saying everything just going to be fine (I guess). Just be positive .

Ragu

Tempo: 65 bpm

[Intro] 00:00

[Verse] 00:18
Tadi malam ku berfikir,
tentang sebuah rencana yang kan kita lalui.
Sebenarnya ku masih saja meragukannya,
memikirkannya aku pun sudah tak sanggup.

[Bridge] 00:48
Dan bahwasanya diriku tak cukup lama aku mengenal kamu.
Aku merasa ragu,
bahwasanya diriku tak cukup pantas dan aku pun menangis.
Mungkin saja karena…

[Chorus] 01:17
Aku mencintaimu,
aku menyayangi kamu,
ku ingin kau hadir saat ini.

[Melody] 01:47

[Verse] 02:02
Apa yang t’lah ku pikirkan,
sepertinya ku mulai merasa ragu.
Mengapa kau memilih ku yang sebenarnya
tak cukup pantas untuk selalu bersamamu.

[Bridge] 02:31
Bahwasanya dirimu terlalu baik untuk aku miliki.
Aku merasakan, bahwasanya diriku terlalu lama membuat kau menunggu.
Mungkin saja karena…

[Chorus] 03:01
Aku mencintaimu,
aku menyayangi kamu,
ku ingin kau hadir saat ini.

[Chorus Bridge] 03:29 – Off Beat
Ku ingin kau di sini,
menemaniku yang tak pasti,
berharap kau tak akan pergi.
dan kasih, aku tak mengerti.

[Break] 04:00
[Verse] 04:03
Tadi malam ku bersumpah, bahwa semua akan baik-baik saja.

The Music: Consist simple piano, drum, violin, bass and electric guitar. I want to make a music that is simple to listen but when you listen carefully, it’s actually very rich in instrument and melody. And somehow I can’t .

The Vocal: Still terrible, even-though I’ve try to record more than 10 times. At least, unlike Yang Terlupakan, you can actually hear me singing in here .

* Foot note: like every other songs I create, this song had hidden massage in it.

Yang Terlupakan on SoundCloud

Recently, I realized that since 2008 I usually write at least 1 very sad – very heart broken – very miserably song each year. One of the song, that I wrote in 2009, is one of my favorite song. The song called “Yang Terlupakan”.

The story behind this song is based on my real life story that I exaggerate and become a not so standard broken heart story. If you can read the lyric, that I wrote in bahasa Indonesia, you can tell that this song is about a man that fall in love with a girl but the the girl didn’t love him back. The girl herself have tendency to hate the man, she even looks down to the man.

At the end the girl passed away as the man himself began to hate her for what her do to him is unbearable. Somehow the man still loved the girl, but the love itself had been overpowered by the hate that he had for her.

The music: This is the only music that I create using nothing more than basic piano. Because, I want to make it as melancholy as I can. I could (maybe should) add another sound, such us violin or bass, but I end up loving this simple composition.

The voice: Yes, I still can’t sing very well. But, at least it decent, although pitchy in some note.

Yang Terlupakan

[Verse]

Hatiku, hatiku hancur.
Mengingatmu aku pun tak bisa
dan aku pun bersedih.

Sedihku, sedihku
mengingingatkan kau sudah ada di sana
dan aku pun menangis.

[Bridge]

Karena engkau satu yang ku puja, selama ini ku puja.
Karena engkau satu yang ku mau.
Mestinya engkau menganggap ku ada di mana pun ku berada.
Mestinya engkau menganggap ku ada.

[Chorus]

Karena kau, karena kau, karena kau ku begini.
Karena kau, karena kau, karena kau ku membenci.
Mestinya kau hidup di dalam hatiku ini.
Sehingga ku dapat mengenangmu sewajarnya.

[Verse]

Engkaulah, engkaulah
sebuah permata yang hampir saja aku miliki
namun kau tak mengerti

[Bridge]

kau terlalu berharga untuk selalu mendampingi aku
kau menganggap diriku tak ada

[Chorus]

Foot note:

While I’ve been telling you that this song is about a not so standard broken heart story, the real story about this song is about my own broken relationship with someone I truly care. I’m glad, it end up nicely not tragically like this song.

visit: Soundcloud page

This is my first published song, I name it “Liar”. This songs is about someone that always been ignored by people that he always try to be nice with. At the end he had enough with them always treat him bad. And also, you might find that I’m not a good singer, so yeah .

At first, I didn’t realize this song had a catchy tune until a friend of mine suddenly humming this song when he was on a bus, he had listen this song several days before. This song have very short lyrics, consisting interlude, verse, chorus and bridge. It also have very short melodic in each part of the song, that’s why it only 3 minutes long.

The lyrics:

Liar

[Interlude]
Baby you can’t denial.
You seems so obscure.
Maybe it’s just for me.

[Verse]
I, I remember
the way that you have done before,
it seems so hard to forget.

Because, you don’t seem to bother.
I end up calling you a liar
cause it’s so hard to forget.

[Chorus]
And (So) I run away
run away into your arms and break
everything you ever had because
basically you are the one to be blame.

[Verse]
You, I think I know you.
I believe that you do know me to
but we seems so far away.

(back to Chorus 2x)
(humming)
(back to Chorus 2x)

Notice that I keep repeating the chorus without changing the lyric? I’m hoping with this relatively short lyric, people can remember this song once their listen to it. About the music, it have simple layer of music instrument, I only use loop keyboard, loop guitar, loop bass, loop drum with a little bit electric sound.

Hope you enjoy out first published song, there’s more to come.

While making our demo album, we also had to make the album art. First, we had to dig what the stories behind all the songs of this demo album. We decide that the main story of this album is broken heart and madness. Also there is a sentance on one of our song in this demo album that can represent the whole album, the sentence is “Can you tell me why my broken heart is growing fast but it’s bleeding no?”. We though the line is catchy but at the same times, it’s too long. So we create new sentence using that sentence. That’s why we name our demo album “A Growing Bleeding Heart”.

While wondering picture/art should we put in the album art, we found out that “Bleeding Heart” is actually a flower name. From there we decide to draw something about heart and plant on our album art, at the end we drew a tree inside a bleeding heart, you might not see it on the final art because we add tear apart paper to add grunge feeling to the album art. So there you go, a little bit story about our album art.