Alison Breitman

The Game, track 5 — Say Hello

Not much to say about this one…it’s the return (on the album) to my folkish roots. Singer/songwriter-y. Mellow. Acoustic. I remember Eytan being kind of sad that Asi and I didn’t put more on this song in the way of instrumentation and harmony, but we just felt, as simple as it could possibly be was better. I sat in a chair, surrounded by sound walls, and played. I think it was actually recorded live (me playing and singing at the same time, as opposed to laying down the guitar and the vocals separately). The simple piano was done by me just kind of as I went along…I think that was the only take.

I don’t know why I don’t remember much about this song. Ha. Oh well.

The song itself is about that vulnerability you give in to at the beginning of a relationship. The hopefulness you feel of letting someone get to know you…the you you don’t let other people see sometimes. It was written long before I began writing this album, and it was, at the time, the first non-confessional songs I’d ever done. I stepped out of myself and into an idea of something and someone else. It was a nice exercise.

Fun fact: This song was originally written for my friend’s movie, as the theme for the two main characters. The movie was (sadly, in my opinion) never finished. It would have been a great one. Oh well (again).

Sweet (and somewhat embarrassing) fact: My dad has this as his cell phone ringtone. Aw dad, my absolute biggest fan, I love you.

The Game, track six…This Ride

(Going out of order a bit…cuz I’m an idiot and forgot until now that I’m skipping a song. So track five will come later)

I love this song. I only vaguely remember now how it started when we wrote it. I think Eytan came in with the guitar part and with the “la-da-dee-dah” outro at the end. The lyrics were about that moment where you realize you tried so hard to make something work, and it was just irreparably broken. I wrote them with a lot of care in my heart and a feeling of just letting go. Like holding a bird in your hands and walking outside and releasing it into the sky.

Man did that sound lame.

Anyway…the recording of this was fun. This was one of the two songs on the record on which Asi played drums himself. He said he channeled Ringo in his drumming. Simple. Light, despite the heaviness of the song’s material. He was so proud of it and, obviously, I loved the result. I remember by then we were doing much more together in our sessions—it wasn’t just me coming in, recording, leaving and coming back the next day to a almost finished song; we were really working together. Figuring out the strings. Figuring out the other instrumentation we wanted. Trying things and seeing if they worked. We had formed an awesome working relationship and had so much fun building on these songs. This song, which I think is Asi’s favorite on the album, is the song where I really felt that relationship unfold.

Fun fact: I knew that if Asi compared any of the music we were doing to one of three artists—Beatles, Radiohead/Thom Yorke, and PJ Harvey—that we were on the right track. Frequently, we’d do something and Asi would turn to me, smile and say, “it’s like PJ!”  “It’s like Thom!”  “It’s like Ringo!” I still smile remembering that to this day. Oh, Asi.