FEATURE:
Groovelines
The Cinematic Orchestra (ft. Patrick Watson) - To Build a Home
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A name that some people might not know…
Patrick Watson is a remarkable artist with this beautiful and entrancing voice. Some people know about his solo career and tracks like Je la laissierai des mots (that has over a billion streams on Spotify). Watson is a Canadian artist whose debut album, Waterproof9, was released in 2001. Actually, that is technically his only solo album, as everything past that was from his group, Patrick Watson. One of his most well-loved moments was singing with The Cinematic Orchestra on their album, Ma Fleur. The opening track on that album was To Build a Home. It was released as a single on 29th October, 2007. It is a gorgeous and spine-tingling track I wanted to explore more for this Groovelines. Although there were mixed reviews for Ma Fleur, many highlighted To Build a Home as an especially captivating moment. I will go more in depth with this track. I want to start out with Wikipedia and their section regarding the critical reaction to the track:
“To Build a Home" had a positive reception from music critics. Critics often saw Watson's vocal performance as a highlight on the song. For The Observer, Stuart Nicholson wrote that "Swinscoe transforms three- and four-chord vamps into something special." For Drowned in Sound, Shain Shapiro regarded the vocals as "bellowing [and] haunting", while Tyler Fisher of Sputnikmusic said that Watson "nearly steals the show". Maggie Fremont of Vulture called it "one of the most emotional songs ever performed."
"To Build a Home" has been used in several different television shows and films, including This Is Us, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, One Tree Hill, Grey's Anatomy, Criminal Minds, Friday Night Lights, and Orange Is the New Black”.
I want to move to an interview from Red Bull Music Academy. Jason Swinscoe from The Cinematic Orchestra. He was invited for a talk about “his career at the RBMA Bass Camp in Vienna before a performance later that night”:
“Can you tell us about this song? It has a different approach to rhythm, because there are no drums. For a guy coming out of club culture, it must have been quite a step to leave out the drums completely.
It was definitely a considered thought. I was in clubs a lot at that time, and what I think was happening around Ma Fleur was that I was actually losing interest in the club scene. And so I wanted to write a record which was a little less beat-oriented. For me, it got to the point where it was just all about the beat, it’s like, “Where’s the music?” I was consciously trying to do more songwriting stuff.
Music is such a strong language, and it’s one that I’m just going to continually explore.
With “To Build a Home,” I had a chord progression in Paris, and I went to Montreal, where my manager Dom put me in touch with Patrick Watson. Patrick was introduced to this guy Jeff, who was running Ninja Tune in Montreal at the time. He used to be on the same hockey team. Yes, because they’re Canadians. They love their hockey. Patrick was, I think, quite a pathetic hockey player. He was the goalkeeper, that’s why he got the shit position. But Jeff heard this guy singing occasionally, and he was like, “You should check this guy out.” I got in touch with him and he was doing his own music at the time, writing music to short films.
I just went to Montreal for five days, and we sat down and just wrote that tune. We did it in the first couple of days really. It was a very collaborative experience. I was like, “Patrick, I’ve got these piano chords,” and he just came up with the melody and we wrote the lyrics together. It was just one of those magical combinations of right time and right place”.
There are not that many reviews for To Build a Home. However, it is a song that a lot of people love. Drowned in Sound awarded the track eight out of ten in 2007. This was a track I first heard in 2007 and instantly was affected by it. I still listen to it now and am moved every single time. It is a stunning song that is so evocative and dreamy. You can close your eyes and picture yourself inside of it:
“That was worrying, back there: the piano keys were dabbed gently and Jason Swinscoe’s vocal arrived, angelic, offering a sweet melody. Oh no - it’s going to sound like Keane. The Cinematic Orchestra have lost the plot.
But that was about 20 seconds into this six-minute long, download-only single - the first taster from new album, Ma Fleur. Yes, this is sensitive stuff, but it’s saved from soppiness by its artistic vision: while strings start to swell up, crescendo-ing, ‘To Build A Home’ never fully takes flight. Instead, it toys with you, undulating up and down, devoid of percussion, light as an eddying breeze. The combination of dainty music and themes of love, loss and feeling safe at home could become twee and over sentimental, but Swinscoe’s turn of phrase and cracked, world-weary cry makes ‘To Build A Home’ reminiscent of Elbow’s ‘Scattered Black & Whites’ in tone, or some of Nick Drake’s more plaintive material, skirting the line between simple shite and simple genius, and fainting onto the right side.
As a sign of things to come from Ma Fleur, this is very promising indeed”.
It is strange highlighting and praising a song that is not particularly liked by either The Cinematic Orchestra or Patrick Watson. Jason Swinscoe said he feels shackled to the song and sort of feel that it defined them and regrets that. Patrick Watson was not hit by the song and feels others are a lot better. However, millions of people do love the song and it is a sublime and stirring work. Before finish up, I want to bring in this Patrick Watson interview from last year:
“While many have offered heaps of money to license the Montreal musician’s acclaimed work over the years, he says there are certain ethical lines he refused to cross.
In the case of “To Build a Home,” his 2007 piano-string ballad with the Cinematic Orchestra, one corporation with a history of what he calls “reasonable ethical doubts” wanted to license his song for an internal marketing video. Watson said he flatly declined their request.
“We were offered half a million,” he said in a recent conversation from his Montreal home.
“I’m not anti-corporation. I just think there’s a difference between corporations.”
Watson said he wrestled with similar moral quandaries numerous times early in his career, concluding that musicians sometimes have to pick their “evils” and settle on rights deals that allow them to sleep at night.
“To Build a Home” has appeared on TV shows spanning “One Tree Hill” to “Schitt’s Creek” and an array of live sports montages.
“CP: You didn’t have a previous working relationship with Cinematic Orchestra before “To Build a Home,” so how did that come about?
Watson: I got the gig in the weirdest way possible. I was a goalie when I was a kid. And Jeff (Waye, former North American label manager of the U.K. record label) Ninja Tune was my coach. I was on their team at the Exclaim! Cup (a longtime charity Toronto hockey tournament consisting mostly of musicians). I played this great game and Jeff was a competitive hockey coach in a really funny way. He’s like, “All right, since you played such a good game, Cinematic Orchestra is looking for this singer for a song.” Which was good for me because I was a nobody. They sent me the tune and it was this four-on-the-floor house track with the chord progression in it. And then Cinematic Orchestra’s Jason Swinscoe came to Montreal to work with me on a piano version. It was a demo and it was not supposed to end like that. I thought they would chop it up and do s–t to it because they’re an electronic band. But instead, they’re like, “We’re releasing it like that.” And I’m like, “You guys are nuts”.
I always think that there is another music video that could be made for the song. Not to say the one out there is bad. However, I always imagine scenes when I hear the track. Something about a child growing into adulthood. Starting out in this home that was once full of life and a place for adventures. That child now an adult and seeing scenes projected on the wall. Now, the house left and is collecting dust. The tree in the garden one of the only things remaining from those early days. I feel, about eighteen years after it was released as a single, there have been that many songs that are as affecting and transcendent. I am not bothered that its creators are not kind to the song. It is for the public and is not theirs anymore. To Build a Home is this startling and gorgeous piece of music I think connects with people for different reasons. Maybe it is something universal about home and memories. Looking back to the past or recalling childhood. I am not surprised it has been used so much on the screen, though it is best heard without other people’s visuals. Having this solitary experience. It has not aged at all. You can listen to it a hundred times and it does not lose its beauty and atmosphere. For anyone who does not know the song, I would strongly encourage you to listen to it. A gem from The Cinematic Orchestra’s Ma Fleur, I will always love this song. It is why I wanted to spotlight it. A wondrous piece of music that will always…
STIR emotion in me.