Just Carly
Copyright© 2026 by Marc Nobbs
Chapter 9: Westmouth
The Song That Didn’t Fit
Tuesday, January 14 2014 · 11:28 a.m. · Westmouth · Private
We started with one of the songs left over from my second album. It didn’t make the record because everybody agreed it sounded too much like two songs that did make it. I’ve always thought that meant it was nearly good enough.
Ellie asked me to play it without the little flourish I put in after every chorus. I complained, played it, and discovered I’d been using that flourish to avoid the quiet bit afterward.
Harry recorded both versions. I still like mine. I’m annoyed that I also like hers.
What The Photographs Won’t Tell You
Tuesday, January 14 2014 · 3:17 p.m. · Westmouth · Private
We took a picture of me laughing at Harry’s desk. I was laughing because he played back something I sang this morning while I thought he was checking a microphone. I told him I sounded as if I’d forgotten what key we were in.
He said, “You did. Then you found yourself somewhere interesting.”
We tried to find that place again on purpose. Couldn’t. Annoying.
There’s a note in my book that says accident near end of second verse. Tomorrow that might make sense to me.
Tuesday, Properly Recorded
Tuesday, January 14 2014 · 10:52 p.m. · Westmouth · Private
Paul and I went out to eat after work. He asked what we’d done, and I launched into an explanation involving three recordings of the same unfinished song. He listened all the way through, then asked whether I liked it any better now.
I don’t know. I like that Harry and Ellie were interested enough to keep pulling at it.
Yesterday I was trying to show them I could work. Today I forgot about proving myself for a little while and actually argued with Ellie. Politely, mostly. She wanted to take out a line I’ve had in that song for more than a year. I said no. She asked me to tell her why I loved it. I couldn’t come up with a reason beyond the fact that it had been there for more than a year.
We left it in for now. That was kind of her, because I think we both know it’s going.
I took one look at the comments under today’s photographs before bed. Some people are trying to guess the entire album from the guitars they can see in the background. If they could hear us, they’d know we’re still guessing too.
Two Ways Through
Wednesday, January 15 2014 · 10:39 a.m. · Westmouth · Private
Harry put on an old recording of a half-finished song I brought from Nashville. There’s a version where I play it quickly because I couldn’t bear sitting with what I’d written. I hadn’t realised that was why I did it until I heard it again today.
We slowed it down. Then we tried a steadier beat underneath, and I sang it the original way over that. Neither is right yet. Both showed me things I’d missed.
Ellie says she doesn’t want us choosing a sound just because I’m familiar with it. I don’t either. I just need her to keep reminding me when I reach for the familiar one.
Things Heard Through Glass
Wednesday, January 15 2014 · 2:24 p.m. · Westmouth · Private
Harry asked me to listen to a few different treatments of the same rough vocal. Nothing grand: a change in what sat underneath my guitar, a little more space around the voice, one version where almost everything dropped away for a line.
I kept expecting the fullest one to sound the best. It didn’t. I could hear myself trying to sing over all the other sounds, even though I was the same volume in every version.
We haven’t chosen anything. I did write in my notebook: Leave room for the words.
That looks obvious now. It took most of the afternoon to hear it.
A Good Kind Of Tired
Wednesday, January 15 2014 · 11:16 p.m. · Westmouth · Private
Three days in, I have a notebook full of questions and no new song to play for Mama. She called to ask how it was going. I told her exactly that, and she said, “Sounds like you’re doing your homework.”
I think she’s right.
Harry seems happiest when he can put two versions in front of me and let me decide what I hear. Ellie wants me to explain what a song is saying before she’ll let me fuss over a clever line. They work well together. Ellie can hear when I’m hiding, and Harry can hear when the way I’m singing covers up the thing I want to say.
Paul took me out again tonight. I told him about the experiment with my voice and the guitar, and he asked whether I’d let him hear any of it. I said yes, when I can play him something without immediately telling him everything wrong with it.
He said he was willing to wait. Then he spent the rest of the evening making me laugh, which may be his method of stopping me worrying about it.
The Word “Country”
Thursday, January 16 2014 · 12:41 p.m. · Westmouth · Private
I said I wanted the record to sound like me without sounding exactly like my last two albums. Harry asked which part of those albums felt most like me. I said the stories. Ellie said, “Good. We can start there.”
That is much easier to say than to do.
We listened to an unfinished song with my usual arrangement, then took nearly everything away and played it again. For a few minutes it sounded too bare. Then I stopped trying to fill every gap, and it sounded more like a person telling the truth.
I still want people to hear where I come from. I’m beginning to believe there might be more than one way to let them.
Nearly A Decision
Thursday, January 16 2014 · 4:36 p.m. · Westmouth · Private
We spent an hour trying different approaches to a chorus and finished by deciding to try again tomorrow. Harry saved all of them. Ellie circled two things in her notebook without telling either of us what they were.
I had a moment when I could almost picture the three of us knowing what this album is. I wanted to grab that feeling and make them promise we were close.
Instead, I packed up my guitar. We’ll listen in the morning. They’re probably right that we’ll hear it differently after a night away from it.
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