Miriam MuchThe Creakies will be performing Aug. 30 at El CorazonA lot went into writing your favorite song, but how much do you really know about it? This week Lily Kerson, drummer of Seattle garage-pop duo The Creakies , delves into writing in the attic of a child care center, compliments from an “out of place” elderly couple and the possibility of dying from a rare disease.Song: “Harvest”Album:

Redwood EPRelease date: February 1st, 2012When it was written: Winter of 2011, but a substantial series of incarnations of the song have been created since then. We didn’t stop rewriting it until over a year later. We have three vastly different versions recorded between its humble birth and now.Where it was written: Most of the lyrics and basic melody were written in a small gift shop/art gallery that I used to work at. It was super slow. Like, there were days when zero customers came in the store over the course of the entire day, so I had ample spare time to write lyrics and clap and take a million voice memos on my phone and still feel like I was in the privacy of my room. I played what I had written for Tori and she tweaked the lyrics, shortened it, changed some melodies, and came up with ukulele and keyboard parts. Other places the song has been rewritten in include my room, Tori’s room, the room of a previous housemate who would let us have band practice there, our favorite coffee shop Bean City whose owner Tim generously let us use as an after-hours practice space, our short lived “real” practice space, Google Docs, and the room we recorded the version you hear on Redwood EP in. A handful of other notable music breakthroughs as far as that song is concerned have happened in other public spaces that I am probably forgetting about.Favorite line of the song: Probably the chorus: “A blood born virus called, and said it’s coming home soon.”Which part of the song was the hardest to come up with: Committing to a chorus that we liked took over a year, so it’s safe to say that was the biggest struggle. Neither of us are perfectionists in any way and equally value more of a messy and fuzzy and jangly sound, but we’re also fussy and obsession-prone about not being done with something until it sounds the way we think it should. Out of all of our old songs, this one best chronicles the different ways we’ve grown into our sound since we first started making music.If we could change anything about the song: I’ve been listening to “Harvest” on repeat since I started answering these, and the last 30 seconds or so are definitely my favorite because of the distorted ghosty sounds from Tori’s uke. I feel like in retrospect, it would’ve complimented the song nicely to have taken more risks by incorporating creepy muddled noises throughout the song and not just the ending. I also have a fierce loyalty and affection for the slower and more gentle-sounding versions that we created when we first started working on it, because Tori’s dreamy vocals mixed with lyrics about blood and swelling make it sound like some sort of twisted lullaby. The version on Redwood definitely fits the best, but I also think we resisted a slower version because we didn’t want a token slow song, which isn’t something we’re afraid of anymore.Odd fact about the song: Our second time recording it took place in an attic that used to be a child care center for abused children in a mansion that our friend Kyle kindly let us hang out in. There was a peeling mural of cartoon characters on the wall and we kept wanting to smoke cigarettes on the roof but were too scared to go through with it.Our Inspiration for writing the song: Death, sickness, feeling vulnerable, the weird churning feeling when you have to do something you don’t want to do no matter how hard you try or however many witchy incantations you attempt. Our favorite time performing it live: We try to make our performances go by as swiftly and efficiently as possible, and when we include “Harvest” in our set list we always play it last. Generally, this means it becomes the one we have the most fun playing because we know it’s a matter of minutes before we’re off the stage. I remember a show we played at The In with Pony Time and S. that included an elderly couple commenting on how much they liked “Harvest” in particular, which was a huge compliment if anything due to how out of place their presence felt. I don’t know if that counts as a favorite time, but definitely the most notable.The meaning behind the song: The song is about someone doing everything they can to stop the sickness and death that is approaching their loved one, but in some ways it’s also from the perspective of the death-y darkness that is making the person sick. There are things like the moon and weather and sickness that you are at the mercy of no matter what, which can be a weird thing to think about. Both of us love learning about rare diseases, and that sort of surreal uncertainty that you could be the next one to wake up with a syndrome that will end your life shortly is something that came up while it was being written. We also share a mutual affection for small turtles and/or puppies, so maybe our next song will be about that? Who can say.Redwood [EP] by The CreakiesFollow us on Facebook and Twitter!