Sam Shinazzi - “Then I Held My Breath”
Track by Track

1. Today We Lost A Great One

A songwriter can tell you what they were inspired by when they wrote a song, pretty much any song they've written I'd imagine. For me, and 'Today We Lost a Great One', I can remember exactly how I was feeling and then how I felt immediately after I had finished writing it. The theme of loss is universal but I knew something special, no matter how sad a place it came from, was pretty close to coming out. It was 5:30pm, the sun had gone down and the night air was getting crisp. I recall walking upstairs to my little studio,
picking up my electric guitar and venting. The song was written very quickly, and when I was done I felt this sense of release. I feel that now every time I sing it.

2. Forge My Signature

This was the first song I started working on for 'Then I Held My Breath', though it took the longest to write. For a while it sounded too much like the last album, but then it came together. It is a song about distance, and I wrote it for someone I was very much missing and wanted to see.

3. Blue-Belle

This was the first song I'd completed for 'Then I Held My Breath' and the first one the band played live. On my last album, I name dropped a lot of names (Scotty, Janice, Alice, Max Weinberg, Natalie Merchant ... I even dropped my own name). I'd been hanging out with a really cool, relatively new friend of mine around the time of writing this third album and she, perhaps not completely seriously, asked "When are you going to write a song about me?". I started thinking, and after a while I came up with something pretty suitable and a song I really love. It is, essentially, a song about wanting only the best for someone. It is a song about being inspired enough by someone that you want them to know about it. This was my way of letting her know.

4. Please Don't Let Me Forget

I wrote the majority of 'Then I Held My Breath' over three weeks in my studio. With the exception of maybe three or four social outings, I really did nothing else but stay in my room and write songs. On those occasions when I did go out, I found that I was so far into the writing process that a lot of those small moments were creeping into these new songs. It’s exciting to write and sing about these moments as they happened. It's not to say that things from my past, or from my imagination, didn't mix with these current
activities because on some songs they very well do. But some of these songs are about specific moments in time and they happened to occur whilst writing for this album.

I spent the night watching a really amazing band with a friend, and I was so inspired by the show and the company I came up with ideas whilst at the venue. The title came first, then the sentiment. I remember driving home singing this song into my voicemail so I wouldn't forget it, then I rang my old (then current) label cause I knew their voicemail would be on too. I pretty much had it all written on the way home in the car. It's subject is pretty clear - wanting to hold onto a really great moment.

5. Girls

I wrote this song on Valentine's Day. It was the last song written for 'Then I Held My Breath'. Some people thought I needed a catchy pop song to lighten the mood. I thought they were completely wrong, and went on to write perhaps the most quirky, catchiest song I have ever written as almost a dare. It started out tongue in cheek, until I really began to like it. I now hold it dear to my heart. I sent an MP3 scratchy demo to all the girls mentioned as a Valentine's Day present, to which they all replied positively. I knew then that it had to go on this album.

6. 'Lil Wandering Soul

This is another song that I needed to trust and wait until the band had rehearsed it to really hear it's potential. In my head, and on the demo I could hear it all. I wrote the verse and chorus on varying days, which was a different approach for these songs. Most of them I wrote in a day or two and I didn't stop until they were done. This song had a verse I really liked; I thought it was a little bit different for me but I needed to bring it back to a familiar place otherwise it would have been just too out there for what I was trying to achieve. When the chorus arrived, it came together like a jigsaw. This is a song, at it's core, about wanting to tell someone something even though they may potentially get angry when I do. It is about a road, where that road has taken them and what has happened in between.

7. Walking

I wrote this song walking one night. I came home, went upstairs and wrote it quickly. It is one of the most personal songs I've ever written and one of those ones where you have initial second thoughts about whether to proceed with them or not, and when you do ... you then question how personal you should make it. I find if I am toning a song down for such reasons, I will usually stop writing it altogether. With this one it just poured out.

8. My Very Own Mary-Ellen

I came up with this title in the back seat of a car driving from the area of Hollywood to LAX airport. I completely forgot about the idea until I sent scratchy demos via MP3 to my friend Matt in LA. He emailed back, saying "Where is the song about Mary-Ellen?". I went into my room, and ninety minutes later I sent him the first version of it. It is a song about wanting to find someone amazing and spending your life with them. It is about that road that leads up to finding that person. I'm proud of how clever this song is. I am in awe of it's subject matter in the most wholesome way and I love that it has one of my most favourite lines that I've written ("You meet girls from all over in my line of work / And when you leave some leave bruises and some they just hurt").

9. Graduation Girl

This was one of the songs not written in the three week period for 'Then I Held My Breath'. It is an older song, written as an apology for something I did to someone brilliant which in the scheme of things, wasn't bad or awful or horrifying or even deceptive. In a sense, it was nothing. But it represents a time and place and something which I deeply regret doing to someone really special. I often think to myself this song should be called 'How To Say Sorry By Sam Shinazzi'. It has a happy ending; now the Grad Girl laughs about it just because she knows I still feel bad. Go figure.

10. This Could Be Something

This was one of the songs written about going out whilst in the writing process for this album. I don't specifically, for the moment, want to reveal too much but suffice to say it is somewhere that holds a great deal of promise to me and thousands of others like me, and it has done for a long time. What I will say is
that this song is about hope and ambition, with a double meaning. It is about witnessing something that you absolutely long for, and then realising you're not alone in this pursuit. That fact makes it even sweeter. When people realise what this song is about, some will laugh ... whilst others will like it more. The lyric
"I need a photograph / I want to make this last" was inspired by a photo I have from this Sunday afternoon out and about in the suburb I grew up in.

11. Thinking

This was a song which I started writing for Jenny Queen's second album. I ended up making it a very personal song for myself. I am really proud of the change in this song ("Can't you see me breaking / Can't you see me shaking? Like a tree in the wind / That doesn't know where it's been"). Again, this is one of those tracks where you think "Do I really want people to hear this side of me?" and again, the answer is yes. I also wanted to end the song on a positive note, and lead the album out on a positive note with this and 'Something Great Must Come From This'. I could have ended 'Thinking' without the final verse but I just wanted to be a little more positive about things, if for no other reason than that is how I was feeling.

12. Something Great Must Come From This

I came up with this title the same night I came up with 'Please Don't Let Me Forget', and much like the song “Thinking”, I didn't want to make it a bummer of a track. I have plenty of those already. The original thought that came to me was 'Nothing Great Can Come From This' but it was too down, and it wasn't even what I was thinking. I was inspired, not uninspired. So I quickly changed it, and wrote the song almost as fast. We knew instantly this would be the album closer. It's not a happy song, but it's a song about wanting to be happy; about being open enough to seek out and want happiness. It comes from a place of desperation, desire and longing for sure but at it's core it is a song shaking that off and looking for a little light and hope.