(antiMusic) Welcome to Singled Out! where we ask artists to tell us the inside story of their latest single. Today Andy Shauf tells us about "Crushes" from his brand new album "Darker Days" which hit stores yesterday. We now turn it over to Andy for the story:I wrote 'Crushes' in the fall of 2006. It's a pretty simple song about a girl that I had a crush on in high school. We would talk and I would turn red and she'd wonder what was wrong with me. She used to write me notes and that was pretty nice. I remember always thinking that she had feelings for me even though she never really gave any signs of it.
When I write a song, I usually make a demo of it right away to get an idea of what I want the whole song to sound like. When I originally demo-ed this one, I put a harmony in that stayed with the lead vocal for the whole song. It was sort of high for me so when I went to the studio to record Darker Days I asked my friend Deb Hansen if she would like to sing on it, and she said yes! (which was nice of her, she has a very nice voice.) We recorded my main vocal and guitar at the same time (which is possibly why we never fixed the weird thing that happens between 'keep' and 'in' in the third verse). Then we put some hand claps, shakers, and tambourines in to give it rhythm and some oooo's and bah's to make it cheery.
I played 'Crushes' at a show once and said that everyone should do the 'bah'-ing part and then some people started bah-ing like sheep...which was interesting.
Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen for yourself and learn more about the album - right here!
