Letter From Melbourne is a collaborative project. It was started by Sodastream and then built on incrementally by six musicians during the COVID lockdown of 2020
Listen to the song
Notes on Letter from Melbourne
This Song Swap project was borne out Melbourne having gone back into hard lockdown in June. We had a brief reprieve after the first lockdown, and everyone was already fatigued, but to go back into it under tighter restrictions and for longer was certainly taking its toll. We both have young kids, so not being able to see anyone else or even to use the playgrounds was tough on our little ones.
In the first lockdown there seemed to be more efforts to keep people engaged and connected. For example, most houses with kids put hand drawn pictures of rainbows in the front windows along with teddy bears, for other kids to spot as they walked around the neighbourhood - the only sanctioned outing. But in the second lockdown, no such ideas seemed to be around. Instead, the rainbow drawings faded away in the windows.
Likewise on the social front. In the first lockdown there were online concerts aplenty. But the second time around they seemed to evaporate. Maybe because everyone lost the drive, and also probably because the restrictions got so much tighter, with not even one person able go to another’s house. So it got impossible for bands to get together.
We had been busily preparing to go into the studio to start recording our new album, and we had an ambitious schedule of online concerts planned (we were already experimenting with this before COVID). But now we couldn’t do any of that. We even tried setting up software that would allow us to jam online, but it was another insurmountable technical hurdle that we weren’t in a headspace to try and overcome, given we were spending every day at work dealing with people’s flaky connections on video calls.
It is against that backdrop that the Song Swap idea came to be. We couldn’t collaborate or connect in any other way, so the idea was to start a song that speaks to the shared moment we were all in, and then to pass the audio file around to our friends and collaborators to have them build it up, instrument by instrument. We didn’t give any specific requests or instructions to the musicians as to the instrument or their part. So it was quite exciting to see what came back, and it was a pleasant surprise to hear some people gravitate towards their non-primary instruments. It was a wonderful way to connect with folks, some of whom we hadn’t seen or played with for many years. And the amazing thing about music is that so few words were required to communicate what needed to be done. The song speaks for itself, and people just knew what to do.
- Pete Cohen November 2020
Listen to the all the versions on Sodastream's SoundCloud
Collaborators (click on the person’s name to hear their incremental version of the song on SoundCloud):
Tom Lyngcoln - https://solarsonar.bandcamp.com/
Matt Walker - https://mattwalkermusic.bandcamp.com/
Laura MacFarlane - https://lauramacfarlane.bandcamp.com/
Mark Monnone - https://monnonealone.bandcamp.com/
Greg J Walker - https://machinetranslations.com.au
The Orbweavers - https://theorbweavers.bandcamp.com/
Lyrics
VERSE 1
Can’t go to the lakeside
The market or the seaside
And I miss those things
The cops are on Bell Street
Checking licences and shires
Not bruised wedding rings
We’re here in the morning
And here in the evening
Bouncing off each other all day
I hurt your feelings, I know
You try to not let it show
Because everybody’s breaking, everybody’s feeling alone
VERSE 2
I wake on Monday
It feels like Wednesday
But it’s Tuesday’s rain
Tapping on the awning
Tickling the plum tree
Every day feels the same
In masks, we pass rainbows
That are fading in windows
Chalk drawings are washing away
Oh we all just want to play
Time stands still but still slips away
Because everybody’s breaking, everybody’s feeling low
I’m warm on the outside but cold on the inside
If anyone asks I can’t say where I’ve been
There’s clouds in the hallway
The children aren’t sleeping
Their binaries weeping
As the walls listen in
VERSE 3
It’s been 4 months since dad died
No funeral but I cried
When we chose the words for his stone
I don’t feel like talking
‘Cause the words do nothing for me
Thoughts crinkle like gum leaves
Under my slow feet
While I walk to quiet my head
Oh we’re all feeling alone
We try to not let it show
Because everybody’s breaking, everybody’s feeling alone