by Chris Caputo & Dave Fornalsky
The third song off of "Lost Time", "Leaving the Station", came to be from a session in "the writing room" (a gazebo on a deck overlooking the DuPage river). Al had the opening riff, and the lyrics started flowing immediately for me. Over the course of maybe an hour, we had worked out the basic structure of the song to where we had a jumping off point to start production.
"The idea behind the lyrics is the age old struggle of getting up the nerve to approach someone you admire from afar. Are the non-verbal cues there? Is it your imagination? What is the other person thinking about? Daydreaming on that long train ride as you drift off to the hum and the clatter of the wheels. The opening riff Al played somehow brought me back many years ago to a time I was riding the train to downtown Chicago on a regular basis, and I wrote the story from there." - Chris Caputo
The song begins with the concept of the players busking in a train station complete with change hitting a bucket, and a "thanks man" from Chris and Al. Then Al starts playing the opening on acoustic guitar, with Dave playing a bucket and me singing for the first line or two. Then the "studio" version fades in.
"Chris suggested the busking concept for the beginning of the song. I had never heard the word "busking" before, and when he told us what it meant, I recall being against the idea initially. I didn't like the idea of trying to play a plastic bucket for the intro, but ultimately the idea worked out, especially once we brought in the sounds of being inside a train station." - Dave Fornalsky
As the song continues, the man sees the attractive woman, who he's seen in the past at the train station, and struggles to work up the nerve to speak with her. A clean guitar plays, accompanied by the bass guitar, and a simple stick on the snare drum rim to keep the time.
"The funny part of how this tune came about is that Dave mixed up the days as to when we were getting together to jam. Chris and I were waiting for him and then I finally called his house wondering what's up - he thought it was the day after. So, to bide our time waiting for him to zip over, Chris and I decided to come up with a new tune - we started noodling around with some chords and the idea was formed. We didn't know exactly where it was going but liked the flow of the chords and Chris had a melody line which rolled quite well." - Al Kunickis
The verse picks up, with the drums coming in, as the man tries to decide how to approach the woman.
"As with several other tracks on this song, I recall working with Al on the root of the bass line, which he eventually ran with. There's an odd note in one of the guitar chords in the second half of the verse, and it took some time to settle on what the bass should be playing at that particular moment. We spent a lot of time on that one chord and one note, trying to figure out exactly what we wanted." - Dave Fornalsky
On to the chorus, where the man thinks of arriving home, and dreaming that when he wakes up in the morning, the woman will be by his side. A simple keyboard line comes in to round things out.
"The keys are just a simple organ that play mainly behind the chorus and guitar solo, filling things out. Nothing unusual, but the song would feel much emptier without them." - Dave Fornalsky
Once more into the verse and through to another chorus. A train can be heard stopping in the background. The man arrives five minutes early at the platform (at 4:20 pm) and is surprised to see the woman wave him over to a seat next to her. He feels like he's dreaming, but very much alive.
"When we started working on this with Dave, I wanted to keep it more mellow and have the drums at half time, but Chris wanted to speed it up - this was a major conundrum, and I almost threw Chris into the river (metaphorically speaking). We went round and round on this as we continued working on this tune, then one day Dave showed up with a fantastic drum line which hit the best of what we both wanted. In the end, I like to say that Dave saved Chris from being tossed into the river - ha!" - Al Kunickis
"It turns out that the drums were a large inflection point for this song, not because of anything they're playing, but the rate at which they play. Originally I had the entire drum line in half-time. When we had the song almost completely recorded, Chris suggested a change to regular, or common time. Neither Al nor I agreed then, but we tried it out, and after changing the drums the song flowed much more naturally. Now the only half-time section in the song is during the guitar solo, and the beginning of the final chorus." - Dave Fornalsky
Into the guitar solo, which is reminiscent of David Gilmour and Pink Floyd, and then the final chorus. That man hopes over the next few stops to win the woman over.
"Ultimately, the final version has some great atmospheric elements that work nicely with the story line of the lyrics. Kudos to Dave's capabilities for making it all work. This was a lot of fun from the beginning to the end to write and record. We hope you enjoy it!" - Chris Caputo
Thanks for reading. We hope you enjoyed this short take on what went into making "Leaving The Station". You can watch the lyric video for the song on YouTube or watch a playlist for all the songs on the EP. Stream or buy the EP from your favorite service, or right here on our website.
Stay tuned for a blog about the making of the next track on the EP, "Ringtone", coming soon!