Don’t tell me if it’s ending - alex o’connor and charlie shan

songwriter + recording engineer + producer

the concept for this song began in my new unfurnished flat. I had just moved in and all the furniture we had was a dingy black couch and a bar stool, next to the piano.

fairly uninspired, i stuck a pillowcase on my head and blindly hit three notes on the keyboard: E, G#, and D. This lay the harmonic foundation for our whole song. this ended up being the “can we pretend?” section (vid below).

a day later we left for a crazy trip to the peak district (i’lll write about this another time). the song was finished on the 4-hour drive back, in the welcome break parking lot. as we drove, humming our pre-chorus melody, alex sang a melodic hook that eventually became the first line of the chorus. I shout "SING THAT AGAIN" and pull over at the nearest gas station. we finish the song right there, and we caught some video snapshots of it mid-creation:

a little polishing and not too long later, we recorded and released the song from alex’s college room. we are currently working on a recording to put on spotify.