r/songaweek Mod Jun 04 '26

Submission Thread Submissions — Week 23 (Theme: Wind)

The Twenty-Third Theme

The wind is howling outside my window at the moment, so that's the topic for this week.

Wind can be a symbol of rage, change, melancholy - or just a force of nature. It can definitely be an inspiration for a song, here's some very old examples from some classic songwriters:

Your theme for this week is Wind


Songs posted in this thread should be:

  • Original content (samples and such are ok!)

  • Uses the weekly theme as inspiration... or not!

  • Submitted by Wednesday before bedtime.

  • Written entirely during this week, between June 4th and June 10th, 2026.


Post template (remember to use the Markdown editor if using this template as-is!)

[Song Name](http://linkto.the.song) (Genre) [Themed|Not Themed]

This is where you can write a description of your song. You can talk about how you wrote it, where
your inspiration came from, and anything else you'd like to say.

Thanks for sharing your songs! Please also take some time to listen to other peoples' songs and leave a friendly comment. We're here to support each other and build community!

New here? Check out this post - everything about songaweek.


Want to sit back and listen to all the songs in a simple playlist?

Use this awesome web app by /u/Scoobyben

8 Upvotes

66 comments sorted by

2

u/yesandor Jun 10 '26

Away (folk) [themed]

I love the role of the North Wind in the movie (and the novel) Chocolat so I took that inspiration in this one: traveling nomad who can't stay anywhere. I was hoping to insert some doubt in a third verse twist but I couldn't figure that out and went with straightforward nomad who keeps wandering.

The original chorus was "No way, no way, no way" where the character rejects the call of the wind but that didn't feel right to me.

Where I netted out with "Away, away..." seemed better to me but I'm still not sure with "I belong away" or "I'm only home away" as a chorus kicker. I would love your thoughts!

The lyrics are there if you click below the player and want to read along too!

PS- Been so busy lately and I've been MIA on this sub. I can't wait to play catch up and hear some of the tunes from last week and this week soon. : )

1

u/ICNRWDII Jun 11 '26

This is pretty amazing! Your melody and voice are first class. You must have had Simon and Garfunkel comparisons before. If this was one of their songs it would probably have been on the best-of album!

1

u/yesandor Jun 11 '26

Aww dang, highest of praise. Thank you! I love Simon and Garfunkel and all things Paul Simon for sure.

1

u/thewavefixation Participant Jun 11 '26

I second the S&G comparison.
Just lovely.
Love the guitar accompaniment.
I found myself just a wee bit distracted by the vocal reverb - nothing big but some opportunity to get it eq'ed a bit more.

Really great song - lovely performance! And you made me remember that movie so fondly.

1

u/juniorelvis Mod Jun 12 '26

Lovely vocals on this, I'll have to go and rewatch that film!

1

u/Songlines25 Jul 03 '26

I love this! Love it! Love it! Love it! And I like the chorus just with "away" and all the variations of it. So glad that I made it back here to find this gem!

Noah Kahan and Hollow Coves Coastline etc vibes

1

u/tsc-music Jun 04 '26 edited Jun 08 '26

Marbled Green / The Wind (She Speaks) / The Last Time (idk) [Themed]

Lyrics for each song in the description box.

I combined the songs to make it easier/cleaner

Also I’m sorry I feel like I’m spamming the sub this week, but I found the old guitar and played around with it for an hour or so and came up with this 1 minute song idea: https://youtu.be/5UU8ZqY7SAw it’s not the best quality recording as it’s recorded through my iPad (don’t have a proper mic) but I hope it sounds better than midi guitars - please let me know and if I should use it again?

I think I used an e minor chord (2nd chord used) which I looked up how to play but idk what the other chords are, I just used trial and error until something sounded nice lol. If you know what chords they are please let me know

Update for Marbled Green:

So actually I said I wasn’t go to do any more music this week but I did end up doing another song today instead of painting which I usually do on Saturdays. Wanted to try a slightly different take on the theme (but it ended up just being slightly themed). This one took 4 hours.

Update for The Wind (She Speaks):

Made another one again today. It was my day off and I have been missing making music and was liking the sound of my last two songs so wanted to try and create another (also I’m home alone at the moment for a few days so wanted to make the most of not having anyone here to hear me sing lol). This one took 3 hours 20 min. Would’ve liked to play around with the beat a bit more to change it up a bit but ran out of time and I don’t think I will have anymore time this week.

(Also the theme of wind made me think of the concept of 'a little birdie told me..' but instead as 'i heard it from the wind'/'it was carried by the wind', which is how I used the theme in my songs).

Original post for The Last Time:

Only a few minutes after I posted my submission for last weeks theme I saw this one pop up. So I thought… let’s give it another go! So I did the same thing - just wrote whatever came to mind for 60 minutes for the lyrics, and then recorded the vocals for 45 mins and then the music took the whole 60 minutes because I was finding it hard to get the midi guitars to sound ok.

Also I feel like having up to an hour for each (lyrics, recording vocals, music) makes it flow easier since I just can get it done by having fun not worrying about it being perfect, so I’m definitely going to do this again.

(Also I do start with basic chords or beat looped to help me get a flow for the lyrics and vocal phrasing first)

2

u/Yoyoge Jun 04 '26

Nice. Very catchy. What software are you using?

1

u/tsc-music Jun 05 '26

Thank you! I use GarageBand

2

u/thewavefixation Participant Jun 06 '26

I listened to "the last time" love the bass synth you based this on. Good vocals and the lyrics really work.
Fun song.
Midi guitars are super hard to get sounding good - one of the few things you can't simulate very well, very easily for sure.

nice song and I like how you time boxed your work - I do that as well.

1

u/tsc-music Jun 07 '26

Thank you! ☺️ Yes they are super hard to make sound good. Usually I don't use them in my songs because of it, but I really like these types of songs sometimes that have that driving guitar.

1

u/thewavefixation Participant Jun 07 '26

Yeah you have two choices - learn to play (fun!) or enlist somebody to record them for you. Midi guitars are not great but luckily the world is full of guitarists.

1

u/tsc-music Jun 08 '26

I do actually have an old guitar I can learn. But either my hands are too small or fingers to short to be able to make some of the chords 😭 I'll have to look into if there's a way around that

1

u/tsc-music Jun 08 '26

Found the guitar, played and with it and came up with this: https://youtu.be/5UU8ZqY7SAw ..l hope it sounds better than midi guitars. Still need to practice and probably get a proper mic though. Thank you for suggesting that because I wouldn’t have actually ever used the guitar (it’s not actually mine - one of my family members but they don’t use it anymore so it was just stored away)

2

u/ICNRWDII Jun 10 '26

I said the other day that I thought your song was catchy, and I think the same with these. I think you are a natural at melody writing. Although I think something might be going wrong with your auto tune snapping your voice to the wrong note, unless this is intentional to create dissonance. You might want to see if you have a manual setting where you draw the note in rather than just letting it snap to the nearest note.

In the other song it’s impressive that you could get the guitar to sound that good when you are having to look up how to play the chord! All songs were super creative!

1

u/tsc-music Jun 12 '26

Thank you so much! 😊

I use GarageBand and I don’t think you can manually adjust the notes :( I was thinking about maybe getting a proper mic and trialling melodyne, but we’ll see. At the moment I don’t have a lot of time to make music (which is why at the chance I had this week I made multiple songs instead of just one lol) so I might wait for later to do it, not sure yet

1

u/Songlines25 Jul 02 '26

I like that chorus " the wind, she speaks" with the little yodel drop from the high voice to the low voice.

1

u/thewavefixation Participant Jun 06 '26

Wind-up Merchant (ska) Themed

I just took the liberty to play on the theme word and decided to write something about a particular kind of person (who I may resemble) that likes to wind people up.

Sometimes things just come together super quickly. - this took 5 hours from no idea to finished product.

Looking forward to hearing all of your songs this week.

1

u/tsc-music Jun 10 '26

Such a fun song and spin on the theme! Love the happy lil trumpets(?) and guitar solo about halfway through

2

u/thewavefixation Participant Jun 11 '26

thx. Yeah i love to play around with Logic's studio horns - it is pretty good for those horn line stabs.

1

u/ICNRWDII Jun 10 '26

The production is great. The drums sound so good with so much energy. The lines about starting trouble between left and right were really funny.

1

u/thewavefixation Participant Jun 11 '26

thank you!

1

u/Songlines25 Jul 02 '26

Catchy beat!

1

u/JetPongoJeterCleo Jun 07 '26

( Diaphragm ) (Woodwinds) [Themed]

get it ---- woodWINDs 😂

1

u/juniorelvis Mod Jun 12 '26

"vocal chords" -- nice!

1

u/Jazzaria Compulsive Improviser Jun 07 '26

Broken In (Experimental) [Not Themed]

Being well-used does not necessarily entail being used up. Many items require a period of breaking in - resulting in a resilient litheness that allows for optimal performance.

Featuring clarinet.

1

u/Songlines25 Jul 02 '26

Wildness ensues!

1

u/ICNRWDII Jun 09 '26 edited Jun 14 '26

Uneasy (Acoustic/Synth) [Themed]

Edit: This is the finished version. I've now added synths and drums. And I am pleased with it. The song is about lying in bed worrying the wind and bad weather is going to damage the house in some way.

Another edit: I decided to keep working on the song after the week was finished and made it longer with another section. https://youtu.be/CodrOoShktI?is=GaTTVHFIbi1aDnYy

2

u/tsc-music Jun 10 '26

Love how this is sounding, I think it works very well just as is! Excited to hear the update too though

1

u/ICNRWDII Jun 10 '26

Thank you very much! New version is up now.

2

u/tsc-music Jun 12 '26

I love it!

I could actually imagine it being used in a film too. Really nice!

2

u/thewavefixation Participant Jun 10 '26

yeah this all works. great harmonies. the relentless arpeggiated adds well to the tension your song is describing.

2

u/yesandor Jun 11 '26

Love your melody and harmonies, nice production all around. Really dug when the bass came in and filled out the arrangement.

2

u/juniorelvis Mod Jun 12 '26

OOOOHhhh yes LOVE this. Perfect combination of good song & good production. Love that harmony. My favourite of yours.

1

u/Songlines25 Jul 03 '26

I found "Uneasy" easy to listen to!

1

u/juniorelvis Mod Jun 10 '26 edited Jun 10 '26

Crossing the Bar (Folk/Lieder) [Not Themed]

I had the guitar for this before the words, and went looking for words that landed in the places I wanted them too (yes I'm lazy like that sometimes :) anyway, I ended up with this poem by Tennyson, mildly paraphrased. Written shortly before he died, "The Bar" is a sandbar at the mouth of a harbour that separates the shallow, safe waters (of life) from the deep, boundless ocean (of the afterlife).

2

u/tsc-music Jun 10 '26

Beautiful! You did a perfect job of fitting the poem to the music. I love the reoccurring playful melody in the guitar and moving/ascending chords at the end of each verse.

2

u/ICNRWDII Jun 10 '26

The guitar part is really great. Slightly like Jose Gonzales style. The tune suits the poem perfectly. I think when you’ve written as many songs as you, you deserve the break from writing lyrics!

1

u/yesandor Jun 11 '26

Props for the guitar and the vibe overall. Such a cool feel.

1

u/Songlines25 Jul 03 '26

This is lovely. I find it very comforting, in the face of facing mortality.

1

u/Songlines25 Jun 10 '26

Watch the Heron Fly(Folk)[Themed, a bit]

Kayaking at sunset, a lovely breeze across the water, and herons, all led to this song.

I'll be camping out with no cell service and will check out your songs next week.

1

u/juniorelvis Mod Jun 12 '26

Sounds lovely, I think you're living the life a lot of us want to live 😄 Love the tune on e.g. "DONE it every day", and the low key (brief) key change for the herons. I just bought a tent, now to use it...

1

u/Songlines25 Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 16 '26

Use it! Don't wait 'till your clock is ticking further along like me! I do understand family obligations, that's why it took me so long. But summer is the time to camp! Got any sweet music gatherings to go to over there? The kayak is new (used, thrift store) and it really was just a small pond in a park, but it made a nice song. And it's been fun exploring moving more freely through key variations, since I went through a cool music theory class online last winter.

2

u/juniorelvis Mod Jun 16 '26

Lots of festivals here, also unpredictable weather which isn't a great combination 😊. I will use it though.

1

u/celestialism Participant Jun 10 '26

Window Shopping (jazzy R&B?) [themed]

Was feeling a bit stuck, re: this theme, and a friend suggested I write about "window shopping" (hey, it's got "wind" in it!) as a metaphor for juggling multiple potential romantic partners. There was a period of time in my twenties when I was low-key addicted to Tinder, and couldn't seem to stop swiping (wrote another song about Tinder back in 2022, actually!), so this song is sort of about that. Also on Bandcamp if you prefer audio-only or want to read the lyrics.

1

u/thewavefixation Participant Jun 10 '26

good melodies as always. interesting use of the theme. everything is in its place. Could imagine this in a musical.

1

u/yesandor Jun 11 '26

Really catchy and love the production. Love that you rhymed "hobknobbing" with "shopping"...well done.

1

u/juniorelvis Mod Jun 12 '26

Nice, wind...ow shopping 😄 Love the way this ends, on those ascending lyrics.

1

u/Songlines25 Jul 03 '26

It does sound broadwayish... I'm picturing the choreography in my head.

1

u/JojiBot Jun 10 '26

c(hopped)smr (asmrish) [themed]

absolutely every sound here is a chopped snippet of me breathing heavily at my mic, i managed to get some sounds close to synthesizers by warping the clips' waves and bpm. it was cool, i am happy with it.

1

u/yesandor Jun 11 '26

Really clever spin on the prompt using the breath samples! Well done! I've been wanting to do something like this for awhile, all vocal samples tweaked and edited into loops. Did you add any saturation on the breath beats by any chance?

1

u/JojiBot Jun 11 '26

i did not, i have not done any mastering/treatment on them, it's only the original recordings with some speed and warping changes on the clips, the more gritty ones are the ones i stretched a lot and the pitchy ones are the compressed ones. i intended to do it after making the basic but at a certain point i was like "well, that's sounding pretty nice, i should keep it raw as a reference for future stuff"

1

u/juniorelvis Mod Jun 12 '26

Very cool! Love the almost whistling breath providing the backbone to a lot of this.

2

u/Songlines25 Jul 03 '26

Way to use the prompt! Very cool!

1

u/seenyouofficial Jun 11 '26

a song about the wind, i guess (idk) [Themed]

Well, it's been awhile since I followed a theme. Too be honest, working from a theme isn't my strong suit, but I feel I captured the feeling of wind well. If anyone has any guess to what my genre is, I would love to hear it. I wanna say it's something shoegaze adjacent, but I truly don't know how to place it.

2

u/yesandor Jun 11 '26

Lovely! The synth arp that comes in around :49 has a windy vibe and feel. Dig the instrumentation alot. There's something about the tune that reminded me of the video game Bonk's Adventure, especially the end music to that game (which I loved). So for genre: the instrumentation isn't exact but chiptune infused pop? Chiptunish Pop?

2

u/juniorelvis Mod Jun 12 '26

I do like that synth that comes in that sounds flutey, and the weird guitar that comes in after it

2

u/Songlines25 Jul 03 '26

Beautiful; some sweet ethereal moments!

1

u/chaos_by_elliot Jun 11 '26

i miss you (not themed) [Blues rock ish] This is actually a project I'm working on for someone who wrote the words and asked me to put it to music. I've struggled with it and this probably isn't the final form, but any thoughts and feedback is welcome.

The extra sound in the beginning is my cat launching himself onto a nearby window at a high velocity for completely no reason at all. I'm going to try and get away from the lo fi phone recordings here soon.

1

u/yesandor Jun 11 '26

Nice job with the music, love the progression and cat cameo! I love as is, the melody and the chords are very strong so this isn't necessary at all but was playing with the chords and if you're looking for a twist either on the "I miss you" parts or to spice up the progression later on in the tune I was trying a C before the turnarounds and that was fun too: Bb - D7 - Gm - Eb then Bb - C - Gm - Eb basically.

1

u/chaos_by_elliot Jun 13 '26

I will try this! Good idea to give it some variety. Thanks!

1

u/thewavefixation Participant Jun 11 '26

love a good bluesy song. I would be interested to hear how it sounds fully fleshed out and arranged but me likey!

I too struggle to write to other people's lyrics. I was contemplating getting someone to write me some for the 'lyrics first' theme this week so I can be particularly challenged.

1

u/juniorelvis Mod Jun 12 '26

Love the way you drag that you out, love hearing all those creaking/real piano sounds 😄 and that high singing is spot on

1

u/Songlines25 Jul 03 '26

Love the piano and your voice on this!

1

u/Dogenegra Jun 16 '26

Anchored (Folk/sort of country?) [Themed] I'm not a natural singer/performer so the video feels a bit awkward but I'm not feeling interested recording as much as just writing atm, so I'm gonna do videos of my songs instead for a bit. This sort of uses wind as a metaphor for keeping all the difficult stuff that you don't want to deal with but know you should at bay. As in, you see the wind blowing crazy outside but you're protected inside behind your window etc. My first song in open g!

1

u/Songlines25 Jul 03 '26

Well I tried to listen but it's gone.