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January got its name because it was written in January – of 2020, to be exact.
Keegan couldn’t make it to practice one day, so Ryan, Ashleigh and David decided to jam on a chord progression David had come up with the night before. It came together pretty quickly upon that first jam. David remembers how he spent the next few months agonizing over how to change it before finally realizing it was perfect the way it was. It was a change of pace from our other songs, and Ryan thinks “we pulled it off really well.” It’s maybe the simplest song we’ve ever written, but we think that’s part of its charm.
The chord progression is interesting in this song. It’s only three bars instead of four, which gives the track a hypnotizing quality. The chorus switches to a more standard four-bar progression to mix things up. That double crash Ryan does timed with the guitar strums in the chorus was an improvisation Ryan and David did at the same time one day that happened to work perfectly together.
The lyrics are about how humans are self-destructive by nature. It’s told from the perspective of a person who is learning to accept that the world is the way it is sometimes. It had a drumless outro with Keegan and David singing harmonizing vocals at one point, but it was cut because it took away from the pure simplicity of the song. The bridge section was improvised by David during the first jam and ended up staying. The voices heard in that bridge in the studio recording are layers of recordings of us talking during our practices. At the end, you can hear Ryan saying “seven’y noine pence” which is a reference to the Limmy’s Show skit about water. Go check it out, it’s really funny.
Fun fact: the chorus of Help Me Doctor was originally going to be used in this song, before Help Me Doctor was fully written. You can hear the chord progression of the Help Me Doctor chorus (with an extra chord) at the end of the first recording of us playing January.
This song is Ryan’s favorite. It also seems to be the general favorite of most people on the EP.
Special shoutout to Evan Zurilgen for being the first person in the world (that we know of) to learn any of our songs on guitar. It was this one.
It really is an honor to know that people are interested in learning how to play our stuff. Please tell us if you ever do! We’d love to hear it.
{Verse}
Costa Concordia, wherever you are, I know
I’ll be there soon on my own
Xenophobia utopia
I know I must keep it
If you ask me, what this life’s about
I’ll think and I’ll try
The only answer is the sign
We placed there centuries ago
Written in perfect cursive
Can’t see it if I stare
{Chorus}
Breathe in 3/4 time
Read between the lines
And you’ll find
Nothing of importance
But it don’t matter if it was important anyway
{Verse}
Take the holistic point of view, for instance
Smash it into dust beneath the sidewalk
January
How does it seem oh so far away
{Chorus}
Breathe in 3/4 time
Read between the lines
And you’ll find
Nothing of importance
But it don’t matter if it was important anyway
This is the first performance of January, with just Ryan, Ashleigh and David. We showed this to Keegan at the next practice, and he really liked it. From January 2020.
Here is a recording of the original bridge David came up with for January. This ended up getting used for Help Me Doctor instead. This is probably from April 2020.
And this is the first demo David made of the song. Ignore the awful hi-hats at the beginning, this was recorded on an electric drum kit where the hi-hat was slowly dying so it was nearly impossible to play. This is likely from summer 2020.
Here is the sample of us all saying “seven’y noine pence.” This can be heard faintly at the end of the bridge in the studio version of the track.
(If this doesn’t load for you, reload the page. Idk why it does that lol)
We play this song a lot. Any time you hear Ryan start going “t-t-t-t-” on the hi hat, you know it’s gonna be this song. That hi-hat start was actually originally in the studio version too, but we decided to take it out.
Anyways, this song is really easy to play. We normally play it close to the end of the set, since it’s a good cooldown moment from the distorted guitars and crash cymbals. The crowd always seems to get into this one, and we sometimes bring people up on stage during the bridge to play the tambourine or something. It’s a great opportunity to interact with the crowd.