Sheddio Sessions - Never Made It Home [Video]

The harrowing story of a different kind of grief. Well, two kinds actually.

‘Never Made It Home’ was the last song I wrote for the Joy Is Elusive sessions. Harborcoat had been planning the recording for months before the initial tracking session and I had slowly been adding new songs and demos to a dropbox folder that I had shared with the other band members. As the dates approached we swapped ideas, and even had a few cursory rehearsals to at least get comfortable with the material.

The plan was to have a roadmap for these songs, but not have them over-rehearsed. I wanted the energy and electricity that comes from a band still learning to stretch and pull the song as it’s played. If a song becomes too rehearsed or too precise, it can feel a bit lifeless on the recording. I love to walk the edge of knowing the tune well enough to play it confidently, but having the material still be fresh enough to find new discoveries with each new pass.

With about six weeks to go, I had amassed a folder of fifteen songs that the band were comfortable with and buzzing with ideas early on. As we finalized our plans, the logistics of recording, and the list of material we’d be covering, I tossed one last song into the basket. It was a quiet, contemplative ballad of sorts. I mentioned to the gang it was there and then my Dad died suddenly one Thursday afternoon.

For the next few weeks I was solely focused on my family and my grief. The dates for the recording careened closer and I became more and more sure that I was not going to go record at a time like this. With help from my family and bandmates, I found the strength to record even though my heart wasn’t in it. As I put my gear together and played through the songs in the folder, I became more and more excited about the latest addition, but the rest of the band weren't sure what to do with it.

Having been embroiled in my family grief, we hadn't rehearsed at all and had barely talked about logistics beyond where we stood the day things changed. As I have already said, for a time it was unclear whether the recording would happen at all, let alone on our previously agreed schedule. with little time to prepare and no ideas bouncing out immediately, we decided to shelve the last one until the end. If we had time to cover it, we would get to it at the end of the weekend. Frankly, I figured it would be left on the cutting room floor or shelved for later use.

Over the course of five days, four of us in the band plugged away at getting rhythm tracks for fifteen songs! Our primary aim was to ensure we had good drum takes for everything. We did everything we could to nail bass parts on the floor as well. For about half of the record, what was played in the room during those five days is the bulk of the performance that appears on the record.

The recording itself was cathartic. It was the first time in weeks I hadn't felt filled with sadness and a true loss of hope. Playing with my friends and focusing on recording were a sorely needed distraction. I was lesser focused when playing and the anxiety and sadness of my grief dissipated for a time.

Eventually, we found ourselves with keeper drum takes for all of the songs that we had prepped for the weekend. We could either try to tackle the newest song or we could move on to overdubbing guitars for the fifteen we had already made headway on.

Someone suggested a break and a step out into the late afternoon sunshine of a beautiful early autumn day at the lake. As we chatted, laughed and tilted back a couple of tall ones, I grabbed my acoustic and just began playing around. The guitar was capoed at the fourth fret, where I had written the new song, and I began to just play it as well as I could from memory. Almost immediately, Ian, the bass player in Harborcoat and the Stick Arounds, and lead recording engineer for that weekend said, “Stay right there.”

Within a handful of minutes, Ian had set up a stereo mixing technique for me to record the song while sitting on the front lawn looking out at the lake. We adjusted mic placement for optimal sonics and to minimize wind noise. I played a few bars and Ian adjusted some preliminary levels. With headphones on and the sun shining in my face, Ian said, “Let’s try one.”

I took a breath and began playing the song. Normally during a first take, especially one in such odd environs, it’s customary to play through a section of the song and then the engineer will stop you once the levels are correct. At that point, you can go back to the top of the song and record a full take with all levels consistent and correct.

As I reached the second verse, Ian still said nothing. I considered stopping just to make sure we were good, but I kept going. I hit the first chorus and began to feel a new confidence and energy in my voice. Playing through the rest of the song, I felt great. I was sure with two or three more takes, I could nail this thing and we could put dinner on the grill. I finished the song feeling great and ready for Ian to immediately hit record on another one.

At the moment I was finishing the take, fellow Stick Around Jeff Gower walked into the control room inside the cabin. He listened to me singing the final verse and chorus and said, “This sounds great. Did you guys do this today?”

Ian replied with a wry smile, “Matty is recording this live right now.”

Matty C recording the lone take of Never Made It Home’ in front of the cabin. Mecosta County, Michigan, 2020.

That version is what you hear on the final recording. There wasn't even a second take to consider. I was assured the take was perfect and was informed that there were goosebumps in the room. I tried to insist upon a second take, but was rebuffed. Weeks later, still not entirely sure that it was a complete performance, I tried to record it again in my home studio. That version had none of the emotional impact of that version recorded in the sunshine near the water.

The song itself is an ode to the wife of a World War Two veteran who comes home bruised, battered, and irrevocably changed inwardly and outwardly. I’ve long been fascinated by World War One and Two and the men who fought in them. Were it not for a few decades of luck, I could easily have been one of those brave souls storming the beaches at Normandy. Fate dropped me into a different time and place, but luck was my only reason for escape.

I’ve also long been troubled by the costs we ask our soldiers and their families to pay for their country. Too often in recent generations, we have seen our young men and women go off to fight in wars where they wind up paying an enormous price for little if any national reward.

Even during our “honorable wars” we glossed over the sacrifices made by wives, sisters, mothers, and daughters as they gave up their sons to the war machine. Millions of the young men who “survived” came home to a world in which they no longer fit or felt they belonged. They found themselves horrified by the things they had done and seen in the name of freedom, and were often told to forget it and simply move on.

‘Never Made It Home’ is a look at a simple married couple who have survived and won a World War but have lost themselves. The young man has returned home older, angry, and handicapped. He can no longer, he has lost his sense of purpose and he is traumatized by what he has witnessed and suffered through. In addition to his physical symptoms, he has night terrors, traumatic flashbacks and is unable to work or concentrate for more than a few minutes at a time.

With an informed husband, the wife in our tale has no choice but to work to put food on the table. She has been robbed of the man she sent off to war, even though his physical presence still haunts her. He cannot work, he cannot communicate, he cannot even sleep like the man he once was. Still, she will suffer beside him out of duty. Duty to country, to family, and to a sort of archaic honor that seems far too abstract for here to even pretend to comprehend it.

In the end it is the story of what we have asked of generation after generation without ever truly acknowledging the cost, or ever seeking out a new alternative to dispute resolution outside of mass armed conflict.

Here now is the Sheddio Session of ‘Never Made It Home’. Enjoy.

Cheers,
Matty C