gschmitt song: Hands

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Hands (lyrics) – gschmitt discusses this song from The Year in Pictures

“This tune came about during a pretty rough time in my life. I was confronted with a serious life change and to be honest, I was scared shitless of it. Thing is, I wasn’t alone and I realized that I couldn’t NOT be strong, for both myself and someone else. I had to step up. I think I did, too.

Musically, it was a pretty spiritual thing. (If you’d just indulge me here.) Sometimes when I’m playing and singing without really paying too much attention, I’ll come up with a little melody and guitar part and I’ll make some quick lyrics that fit on a purely musical level. I adopt the “just sing whatever comes to mind and fix it later” approach.

The funny thing is nine times out of ten, what I come up with in the moment has a meaning in and of itself and it winds up setting the tone of the entire song. I don’t know how to describe it besides my unconscious leaking out. The chorus and first verse of this song happened like this. (I can’t say “written”…they just happened.) It was a relatively quick write. It came together quickly in the studio, too.”

- gschmitt