The 12 Weeks of Fate Line (aka Fate Line Fridays) – Making the Fruit Fall

Off on our hols on the 401 headed for Montreal and turning my mind to the 4th track on our album, Making the Fruit Fall. This is the one co-write on the record – a joint effort in words and music with my bandmate, producer and partner Simon Law. For my part, I was asked to flesh out Simon’s lyrical idea “make or breaking it down, shaking the tree, making the fruit fall, whys and wherefores fall to the floor.” What unfolded was a look at what happens when you summon up the strength to do just that – shake the tree. Annoyingly (as pointed out by John) Peter Gabriel had already claimed that title so the song became the result of shaking the tree – Making the Fruit Fall. The tune was a welcomed challenge for me to sing – Simon’s jumping and multi-noted melody took me away from my own approach to melody writing. The octave leaps capture the ear and evoke the fragility of courage. The melody compliments the message.

Simon says:
This song originated from a melody, which kept coming back to me and stays intact in the song as the vocal melody. On a street car ride downtown the words Jen quoted earlier came to me fully formed. The song developed from that – Jen, a more prolific lyricist than I, developed the song and added the music for the bridge. The chords, harmony instrumentation, developed over many weeks of playing the song with the band. It’s one of the first songs we did with Jon playing mandolin. And the harmonies created by Jon’s mando and John’s acoustic guitar with Jen’s guitar part layered on top creates a delicate weaving quality which only breaks in the bridge.

The good doctor says:
This song has a familiar descending chord progression that you will hear variations of in everything from Pachelbel’s Canon in D to A Whiter Shade of Pale (and Fate Line for that matter). In rehearsals, Jonathan and I would sometimes play the melody of any handy tune that fits in with this progression.