THE STORY AND MEANING BEHIND THE SONGS ON 'LIGHTSPEED'
by Robin L


9. Sinking Sand

I remember writing the chorus of this song at the same mansion as where I wrote In Your Arms, in the summer of 2008. I only had the guitar chords, vocal melody and lyrics of the chorus but I played it over and over, just to find the right vibe for the rest of the song that still had to be written. I was never really able to finish the song and it lay on the shelves for months. It wasn’t until the writing sessions in Limburg in the summer of 2009 that I finally completed the song after an entire year. And I can tell that it’s a great feeling to find out that you like a song way better than you initially think it is.
The lyrics are about unconditional love and people that would sacrifice their lives for someone else close to them. The picture I tried to paint was about somebody that’s stuck in quicksand and in desperate need for help. He knows that someone close to him would always try to save him, even if it would be lethal. Even if it would cost a life, that person would not hesitate a second and just dive in. I find that love like that can be truly touching and I think it’s worth more than anything.


10. Am I So Blind

It’s funny how many times I write something and want to throw it away again. It’s hard to please myself, but I guess the only way to move forward is keep critical on your own creations. So this was actually the first song that I wrote for Destine that is in minor key. Pretty bizarre when you think of it, but I just felt that minor sounding songs just didn’t suit our style. Little did I know of the possibilities if I just took that step. Halfway recording the rough demo for Am I So Blind, I stalled and decided to just go on with another song. At some point I showed the song to our label and they completely loved it and persuaded me to finish it. When this one was down, it paved the way for the other songs on the record that are in minor key and are somewhat more aggressive than the others, like In Your Arms, Spiders and Burn. It opened a new door for us and I guess that’s the only thing that keeps a band’s songwriting moving forward.
The thing that inspired the lyrics is when you’re trying to get a hold of a certain person and you just don’t have a clue what’s up. It’s a story about secrets, lies and hesitation. Funny detail is that some people at the label considered releasing this song as a single at one point, but eventually everybody agreed In Your Arms and Stars were better choices.


11. California Summer

This was the last song that earned a spot on the record. This was another example of writing a song that you think it’s not good enough. I dropped it and after a few weeks I played it to the other guys. They actually really liked it, as well as our A&R Bart. I still wasn’t convinced and didn’t find the time and motivation to finish it. During pre-production at the second half of the recording sessions in Florida, in September 2009, we played all of our new songs for our producer James. He told us what he liked and disliked about the songs and came up with ideas to improve the songs. After hearing everything he asked if we maybe had some unfinished song ideas by any chance. I played the first minute of California Summer and was totally stunned to hear that James actually liked it too. He thought it had a lot of potential.
This was the only song that we partly wrote in the studio, the other 11 songs were all already finished song ideas before entering studio. It was a new experience and producer James did great work on the bridge, my favorite part of the song.


12. In The End

I’ve always been a huge fan of long epic ballads as a final song on an album. I always feel dissatisfied when I hear an album end with a short and average song. That’s why I already had the plan in mind to write a song like this for the album for a long time. I wanted the song to have a pretty unconventional song structure, building up in intensity as time passes. Because writing a song like that isn’t something that I have a lot of experience with, I listened a lot to some ‘epic final songs’ that I love, to get a better understanding of what works well and what won’t. My Sundown by Jimmy Eat World was one of the songs that influenced me most. When you listen closely you can hear trumpets in the outro, I really like the unusualness of it: I thought it was really appropriate to make stand out the final album track more and make it more epic by giving it a little more of the orchestra sound. The idea for it came from the high pitched trumpets in Penny Lane, one of my favorite Beatles songs.
The first idea for the song came on a writing session in Belgium. For this album I think I wrote on four different locations, and the one in Belgium didn’t go too well. New songs didn’t seem to work and I couldn’t get satisfied with any ideas that came to me. And just when you least expected it, the total melody of the verse and chorus came out. While writing the soft chorus I had one of those magical moments of being amazed how on earth a melody could come out of my head that could move me like that. And I was so extremely grateful because of it. I think while writing songs it’s only about once a year that makes me feel like that. On those moments it’s when you realize more than ever that at first it’s all about satisfying yourself with the songs you write: when you put heart and soul in it like that, other people will usually feel it too.