Love Never Lasts - AlexGB231 ft. Mai from Synthesizer V Studio & text from @alltooswift
Channel: AlexGB231
Date: 01/05/2023

Ok, this might be one of my most ambitious songs I've ever written. I don't think I'm exaggerating either, because not only is it a massive *seven* minutes long, but some of the production choices that were made were pretty ambitious, with one in particular leaving a massive impact not only on this song, but potentially for all future songs too! What do I mean by that? Let me explain...

First of all, I finally got the full version of Synth V, and the vocals you're hearing throughout the song is called Mai, a synthesised voice that comes free with the main version. She's also allowed to be used commercially as well, so I can definitely also include her voice in a Spotify release should I choose to release the song there, and I don't think it even caps the royalties either! (as if I get anything noteworthy to begin with usually...) And I've gotta say, she absolutely NAILS it - her voice fits the song so well, and the jankiness I've experienced in the Lite version is reduced massively here! There might be a *few* optimisations here and there I could make, but on the whole, it sounds FAR closer to an actual human voice and serves the song very well! And *especially* when she sings 'Mosaic Broken Hearts'! Just... chills! Literal chills!

Speaking of, there's gotta be lyrics for her to sing in order for me to even justify using the voice to begin with. Now, the text itself isn't mine, I actually got it from a poem created by @alltooswift (this one: https://www.youtube.com/post/UgkxrZyskOtHYBwkF7leDviXJAZ1bZfT4kPq ). I did have to restructure certain aspects of the poem for it to work in my song (see my changes here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_99iUEy1GPjvHev07peA_GiJw9YSn75L_SI_ZFg98LA/edit?usp=share_link ). Following the *actual* structure of the poem, the chorus should *really* start with 'and when she took the stage...', but I instead took 'back when her walls were crumbling' onwards to be the chorus, saving 'and when she took the stage' as verse 2. I otherwise would've had to re-use the lyrics from verse 1 in verse 2, which would not have been ideal, personally. I also got rid of the word 'however' in the line 'However, I guess it's true what they say' in the bridge because it just doesn't fit into the melody I created. Speaking of the bridge, I also bring back the 'love never lasts / and that eventually it'll pass' line here, and just adapt it a bit to fit in the bridge. I just felt like it'd be nice to have the title hook appear in the bridge, and it does work well! Other than that, I didn't really change anything about the text itself too dramatically, other than those restructures I mentioned. It was a little bit tricky at times setting the text to a melody, but I think for the most part, it worked out pretty well!

Oh, there's also a piano solo at 4:04 as well! I recorded that live using one of the pianos at my university campus, so excuse any imperfections in that. Basically, It starts in the high register, then gets lower and louder and eventually ends on a Bb7 chord to transition into the bridge. Here's the score: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dB6BEasx4NSP7ulg9onPsf5ulivDa4QM/view?usp=drivesdk

Ok, do I have time to tell you lot the chord progressions? I don't know, but I'll sum up the most important things. The verse contains a D major chord, which is not in the key of Bb, but functions as a secondary dominant of the vi chord, G minor, to take us there. Except in the verses, it resolves in a deceptive cadence to Eb, which then takes us to Ebm for a nice little IV - iv - I minor plagal cadence, which I love the sound of! It has a nice bittersweet quality to it! Near the end of the song and in the second verse, we sometimes hear the Ebm as an Ebm6, which contains a C as well, adding to the bittersweet quality as it can now also be thought of as a Cm7b5/Eb chord if you want, though I still prefer to think of it as Ebm6. Either way, I do really love the sound of the extra dissonance adding that 6th of the chord brings, it really adds to the bittersweetness! Although, that Ebm chord isn't *always* played over Eb, I do sometimes play it as an Ebm/Gb chord, so it's in first inversion, and it does sound nice to really emphasise the b6 of the scale in the bass like that for extra tension! But back to the D major chord, it actually does resolve as a V7/vi to Gm in the choruses, finally, so that's cool! And speaking of the choruses, the final chorus is a half-step lower, in the key of A major, perhaps in the context of the song, representing the relationship just becoming a distant memory, or something.

Overall, though, I'm really happy with how this song turned out! It almost kinda sounds like it could be an end of act 1 song in a musical, or something, it's really beautiful! With all that said, this might be longest video description so far, so well done if you read all that, but I hope you enjoy the song!