"The Valley" is one of those wierd songs that takes a really long time to write.  Lyrically, "The Valley" was inspired by John Bunyan's classic allegory Pilgrim's Progress.  There's a scene where the hero, Christian, finds himself journeying through the "valley of the shadow of death."  The animated version of the story from the '70s does a wonderful job of conveying the feel.  It's dark, Christian can't see, there are monsters lurking around every corner, Christian feels his weapons are useless.  He's utterly hopeless.  But eventually, he simply calls out to God and is led safely through.  As I had been reading Pilgrim's Progres at the time, I wrote the lyrics for "The Valley" when I was in 10th grade (about twelve years ago).  Though I put them to some music, I was never quite satisfied with the way they fit.  I really like the poetry, imagery, etc. of the lyrics.  However, they don't rhyme and there's not a definite metre; not ideal for song lyrics.

Over the years I'd tried to put different music to make it fit and feel better.  Usually I'd find something that was OK, but not great.  So the lyrics remained folded up in my guitar case... until last week.

I was hanging out at Bob's house and had been fooling around with a cheesy pop punk ditty I had come up with on the way home from work.  Giving the pop punk bit a rest, I just started screwing around with bends in the blues scale.  After a while, I realized I was playing a really neat riff.  I stopped, thought for a second, and knew I had the framework for finally giving "The Valley" justice.

Unfortunately, I forgot the riff.  We went to a music store, and I tried to recapture it, but I couldn't.  Then, on the ride to grab some burgers, our sister-in-law called (Bob's wife's sister is married to my brother... so we share a sister-in-law as well as a neice and nephew... it's wierd, but true).  While she was talking to Bob, I remembered the riff.  I forgot it again in the burger joint, but remembered it again when I got home.  I went straight to my Tascam to document it, lest my memory fail for a third time.  Unfortunately, a different friend called and talked to me until well after midnight.  I was able to program the drum patterns during the conversation, however.

The next morning, I woke up before six and recorded the guitar and bass parts.  When I got home from work that day, I laid down the vocal track and mixed the song down.  I was incredibly happy with the way the guitars and bass came out.  Using the SansAmp GT2 and a Boss CE5 Chorus/Ensamble pedal, I was able to get Chlöe to sound almost acoustic with her neck pickup.  That may be my favorite full-chord rythm guitar tone ever.  For the lead riff, I used my typical bridge pickup/tremelo/SansAmp settings.  The bass part was a walking line that I came up with on the spot.  I used a heavy pick to give it a little more punch.  It really is the heartbeat of this song.

Daniel, my bass player, suggested that I raise the pitch a step and a half to give me more intensity to the vocals.  I've been trying that recently, and I think he's right.  However, I don't know if I can play bass in the key Cm!  You can capo guitars, but not the bass!  Maybe I can get Daniel to learn the part and transpose it...

Today at Beth Simcha, I'll be down an acoustic guitar (Deborah's in Israel), a bass (Daniel's booked for his birthday).   That'll leave me with Conga, Violin, and vocals in addition to my guitar.  Usually in that kind of situation, I play acoustic, 'cuz it seems to suit a smaller band better.  I think today I'm going to play Chlöe anyway using the setting I came up with for "The Valley."