The Making of "Flower"

Lyrics inspired by a dream from 5/12/2020

Written June 2020

When recording “Cabin”, I randomly edited the piano riff backwards, and realized that it could make another song. It was inspired by a dream about being in a stadium for some event, and sitting next to a girl whom I didn’t know anything about, except that her name was May and we’d both gone through some kind of assault experience. Chaos started happening on the stage as some men revealed that our assaulters were in the audience, and people were screaming and running out of the stadium. I guided the girl outside to help her out. She seemed depressed that the event had been disrupted and I tried to offer her a flower, but she rejected it.

I started to explore the city with my new friend, first going to my middle school, where we seemingly trespassed into some areas, but were allowed by a kind custodian to wander. Then we went to the museum where my mom works at and ended up in the staff area. Instead of going to the right exhibit, the girl wandered off into an unfinished, mysterious room that was off-limits; she got scolded by a woman who mistakenly called her “Blossom”. 

The dream was very chaotic, and incoherent at times; but I find it fascinating how the different places we explored represented the ways in which that girl was violated in her experiences, and the flower could have represented lost innocence.

I reached out to Joey again for the piano because he’d already made “Cabin” with me, so I should also make the song’s sequel with him. While it was extremely difficult to play the piano and also edit the piano to get the precise tempo (in retrospect, I could’ve done this song myself to make it way less complicated), I really appreciated Joey’s creative contributions; he composed the piano bass and gave other suggestions. The vocals were hard to record, taking at least 5 vocal recording sessions.