Hourglass probably has the most unique and heartfelt story of all my songs yet. The song was conceived out of a songwriting task I had last year in MuDa by David (Divan) Van Den Hende of Hermitage and Divan and The House of Quoi. The task was that you had to make a song with a story that wasn't your own, preferably a story which had emotional depth. You could interview someone you knew and then write a song about their story. The story I chose was about a boy named Saaron.
Saaron and I went to the same school, he was one year older than me and one class higher. I was only in class for one year with Saaron in the fifth grade in Cultural and Humane Sciences. Saaron was not the best student. He just did the bare minimum to pass. But he was a relaxed guy. I could never really sense any pressure or anything coming of him. After highschool he tried college for one year but dropped out to become a salesman at Vandenborre, an electric appliances and electronics store in Belgium.
The year was 2014 and I had just started college. I was 19 years old and was at my then-girlfriend's house when I got a text from an old classmate. He asked If I'd already heard the news about Saaron. He had crashed his car into a tree on the highway on his way to work. I didn't know what to think, my mind was absolutely blank. Saaron died when he was 20, I was going to be older than him, older than he would ever be. Until this day that is still the thought that whirls inside my mind. His parents sent an invitation to come to the funeral, it was a cremation. Before the ceremony I saw some people from high school. Some typical cocky tough acting guys as well, but it was visible that everyone was going through changes, getting further in life and working on themselves. The ceremony included songs Saaron liked, speeches from his family, friends from school and his colleagues. I remember all the cocky guys falling completely silent and occasionally swallowing what I assumed was their pride. After the ceremony I was standing at a table with Saaron's dad who was telling us the story about Saaron's last morning. Contrary to the usual mornings, Saaron and his dad were in the bathroom together, brushing their teeth. His dad asked him what his plans were for that day. "Go to work, have some drinks with his colleagues and play snooker." "Do you really like doing your job?" his dad asked. "It's not a job for me, it's my hobby, dad." He replied. "That's great! You know what, when you come home I'll make your favorite dinner!" his dad exclaimed and so Saaron left for work, never to return again. After the ceremony I remember Saaron's classmates looking very sad and our old History teacher from high school comforting and embracing them. Our History teacher always was one of my favorite teachers I had to pleasure to have known. Six years passed and I knew who I was going to contact for my task.
I sent a message to Saaron's sister who was in the last year of high school with me. I asked if she and her parents were fine with me interviewing them and writing a song about Saaron. I met them in Le Bal Infernal and let them talk about their experiences with the loss, about Saaron's life, what kind of person he was and much more. Saaron was, as I suspected a person who took life easy. His sister is a very good student, but he was more easy going when it came to school. He loved DJ-ing and had a set-up in the garage where he practiced his sets. His mother would often come and ask to turn it down as not to disturb the neighbors to much but moments later the volume would slide on back to the previous level. He wasn't too key on saving too much money, he spent it on the equipment he liked. His mother once found a bill of some DJ equipment in his car which was much more expensive than he had told it to be. His mother said that in hindsight she was very proud and glad he did his own thing, that didn't worry so much about saving up and that he spent his time and money how he wanted. After talking for about four hours I thanked them and started working on the song. I promised to let them know when I had finished it.
The inspiration for the song title of Hourglass came from something his mother said about mourning and wounds healing. Time is like flowing sand that slowly fills the cracks and emptiness has left inside a person. I kept thinking about that analogy and found the idea of sand flowing through an hourglass to be the perfect theme. I tried to write the song from Saaron's perspective, his last day, his views on the world, how he would react to his parent's mourning. In some cases there's a narrator who announces things, noteworthy is the last sentence which is sung from the narrator's point of view. "It wouldn't stop him from laughing anyway." Once again I started to experiment with alternate tunings as a means to find sonic inspiration. I tried a Radiohead tuning from the song 'Nice Dream' from their second album 'The Bends' The tuning is EADGAE but a half step down, so EbAbDbGbAbEb. When the slide guitar enters I change the tuning to EbAbDbGbBbD to modulate the key a whole step upwards from Ab major to Bb major. Playing this song is always a challenge as I don't have a roadie (yet) that can come up to me with a guitar to do the modulation. When I perform the song solo I try to grab my chords in such a way that I can still make the modulation. I also replace the guitar slide solo by a harmonica solo. Enough music nerd talk. I finally finished the recording about eight months later, failing the entree exam of the Ghent conservatory made me very insecure but when I started as Mr. Autumn I promised to come out of my shell and be proud of my songs. I recorded a version in The Rua Room and released my recording as a demo which you can find on Soundcloud. My deepest condolences to Herman, Laïen and Christine for their loss and for sharing your love for Saaron and his story with me.
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