Project Description

EMMA DYKES
“THE RIDDLE OF LIFE”

Emma’s
Track by Track review
Of her sophomore album

Reviewer: Dave Bruce

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Track by Track review
“The Riddle of Life”

All I’m Gunna Get
This track was written with Drew McAlister – who I absolutely love working with and was lucky enough to have previously written Pay It Forward with. We were sitting in his loungeroom on the morning of the write and throwing out different ideas hoping that one would grab both of us. I had had one of those lightbulb moments the night before when I was trying to ignore the news on the TV in the background, but one particular story kept being pointed out to me until I finally listened. It was about an elderly couple who were walking hand-in-hand across the road when they were hit by a vehicle, killing the wife. Drew and I were both touched by this bittersweet love story, reminding us of how precious life is. How important it is to make the most of moments with those we love. How important it is to not hold onto the frustrations or insignificant upsets that could easily be present in our last moments if we aren’t careful. How important it is to breathe and let go. It was chosen as track 1 because I believe it sets the perfect tone to solving The Riddle of Life…

Top Shelf
I think we have probably all been there, on one side of the fence or the other, where there is a couple that just aren’t that suited to each other. This song is written from the perspective of the barmaid, serving cheap drinks to a guy and his date. It is a metaphor for the quality she sees in him. She believes that he should step up to someone of her style and let her show him something ‘top shelf’ instead. I love writing metaphorically and Lachlan Bryan was a great partner in crime with this one. It is fun and upbeat, it is cheeky and metaphorical. It’s a nice balance to some of the deeper stories that come out in the album.

Write My Own
I wrote this track while I was in the process of planning my wedding. It is probably one of the more vulnerable and personal tracks on the album. Although we had a beautiful wedding day that I wouldn’t change a minute of, there were plenty of moments along the way where it just didn’t feel as exciting as it should have. Trying to please everybody, not leave anyone out and make sure it was also what we wanted without spending a house deposit on it… it was difficult. But this song isn’t just about planning weddings. It’s about all the moments in my life where I have felt out of control, confused or like I was a little less than expected. It is for all the times that moments seemed like they should make me happier than they did. For the parts that felt superficial. For not knowing when I deserved applause. All those times lead to that one vulnerable, out of control moment of feeling so confused that I wrote Write My Own.

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Half Your Glass
It is that classic story of wishing we knew then what we know now. Unfortunately, we aren’t born with all the wisdom we need to make the best choices right through life. We learn as we go and although there is beauty in that, there is also a lot of wasted time and regret. By the time we are old enough to have that wisdom and hindsight, we are beginning to run out of time to really do anything with it. I see this a lot in hospitals as people age and realise that time is not endless. Half Your Glass is a metaphor using Old and New beer as a way to share the wisdom of an older man with the time of a younger one. They wish they could trade half of one glass for the other, time for knowledge, and have an equal mix of both.

Borrowed Gear
This was probably the first track written for this album. It follows my involvement with a rodeo association back in my days in Cape York. It explores the throws of life on the rodeo circuit. Someone once told me that they don’t always take their own gear to a rodeo because if they were asked to ride, they can say they didn’t bring any gear. This often led to them being leant the gear for the ride. It meant that if they rode poorly they could reassure themselves that it must have been because of the gear they weren’t familiar with. It provided them an ability to maintain confidence in themselves. Borrowed gear shows the vulnerability and fragility of the riders and their families in a career that is difficult and dangerous. Although the verses are quiet and emotional, the chorus picks up energy as the bull is bucked from the gate. With the importance of taking the pay cheque home to the family, they borrow the gear and ride like they own it!

Walk A Mile
Written with Roger Corbett, this song came about from a story I brought back to Oz after being on a subway in New York City. I was a little shaken up at first, being on a subway. It was reasonably confronting when all I had to go by were the drama scenes I had seen on movies    ! While we were standing in the carriage, a ‘homeless man’ started telling the story about how he came to be in that position. Most people avoided eye contact and ignored him. Whether they had heard it all before or whether, like me, they hadn’t and therefore didn’t know what to do, they kept their eyes fixed elsewhere and didn’t engage. A little further into the ride, a child sitting opposite the man started to play a game with him. He had a rolled-up paper and was pretending to shoot the man. The man responded by acting as though he had been shot and they both laughed as they game continued. Slowly the other passengers started to watch and laugh too. All of a sudden, the man that was previously a homeless person, became a human being. It was a powerful scene in reminding everyone that any of us could end up where he was sitting. It didn’t mean he was a bad person, he had just had unfortunate circumstances. As the song says ‘but for the grace of god there goes me’… remember never to judge someone until you walk a mile in their shoes. 

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The Riddle Of Life
The title track and one of the most special songs on the album. I wrote this song as a gift for a very good friend of mine, a fellow nurse, that had become like an older sister to me after her family moved in across the road when I was 13 and I started babysitting her kids. Late in 2018 she was diagnosed with an aggressive brain tumour just before her 48^th birthday. I didn’t know what to say, or how to say the things I wanted to her. It was a very emotional time. I hadn’t actually written a song in a little while but I pulled out the guitar, knowing that music was a big part of her life, and I wrote this song. I hoped that it may help her in some way to stay strong and positive and to know that we were all with her on this journey. She called in to visit me on her birthday coincidentally and I played her the song. There were lots of tears that’s for sure. Sadly, Ric passed away 12 months later but she did get to see the release of this song as a single and the impact it had on so many people. I will never know the answer as to why these things happen to the most beautiful of people…that, I guess, is The Riddle of Life and why this song was chosen as the title track for the album. Dedicated to Ric, it doesn’t give the answers, but it does imply the question that this whole album is wanting to answer.

I Love You More
Well… as you listen to the lyrics to this song it will paint its own picture. Leading up to getting married I had been wanting to write a love song. I had never written one before and I was finding it very challenging to sum up so many feelings into one song. I had been talking to Angus Gill and when we both realised we only lived just up the road, we made a time to meet up to write a song. I took this idea to Angus and said I wanted to write it as a wedding gift for my soon to be husband. He was great at helping me to pick out the essential parts and piece a crazy journey together in a 3 minute song. Aaron, my now husband, and I had a fairly cyclonic start to our relationship. For two people that are normally very planned out and measured in our actions, we somehow ended up in an unbelievably quick love story. One week in he bought tickets to Germany to accompany me on tour a few months later. Two weeks in his ordered my engagement ring that apparently took three weeks to have made. So, three weeks later he picked it up and the next day he proposed. All before we even made it to Germany. We got married eight months later and the rest, as they say, is history! We decided early on though that love is a commitment and that is what I Love You More addresses. 

This Nurse
This is my second co-write with Matt Scullion, the first comes a little later on the album. He had heard me talk about some of my experiences and stories from my career as a nurse as I spoke during the Scullion Session writers round in Newcastle and he was convinced that I should write about it. I am glad he insisted on getting this song out of me because I love it. We wanted a song that would become the nurses anthem. We pictured a group of nurses after a busy shift letting their hair down around a jukebox belting it out to this song. It has some attitude, a bit of cheek and some heartfelt emotion of what life is like in the shoes of a nurse. This track harnesses the power of the ukulele, which I absolutely love, to give it a different feel to some of the other tracks on the album. I can see the nurse laid up on a sunbed with a cocktail in hand on a tropical island by the end of this song, thanks to Matt Fell’s use of this chilled out instrument.

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The Drovers
I remember as an Emergency nurse seeing the cars lined up along the road and the kids watching on as the rescue helicopter would arrive on the hospital grounds to transport out critically ill patients. I remember also seeing this as the kids from small schools welcomed us in a convoy of 30 4WDs into their schools to meet them and share lunch. The Drovers was written while on a 4500km 4WD tour called The Drovers Run which is one of the major fundraisers for the Westpac Rescue Helicopter. I was lucky enough to be asked to join as one of the performing artists on the tour, along with Matt O’Leary. We had arrived at Arkaroola as part of the tri-state tour and Matt and I decided that the Helicopter, its staff and everyone taking part in the fundraising all deserved a song. We asked some of the other people on the tour to write down a couple of words describing what the helicopter and The Drovers Run meant to them. Matt and I then penned The Drovers on the back of a restaurant menu while at lunch that day. It is a song that not only celebrates the importance of the Westpac Rescue Helicopter and the people who raise the money to keep it in the air, but also to all of our emergency services. It is a universal thanks and admiration of the lengths that they all go to, to save lives in our vast country.

Storm on Cloud 9
This is the other co-write that I was lucky enough to do with Matt Scullion. I wanted to write a song about the fact that people talk about cloud 9 like it is some totally unbelievable place but I believe that even in the most beautiful places, there can still be storms. Nobody ever said it would be easy, just that it would be worth it. So, I don’t mind weathering an occasional storm, it brings out the rainbows and makes the sunshine even crisper. It is a very ethereal sounding track. Matt Fell has really used the instruments to set the scene in this one. It feels like you are up in the clouds when singing along to this track. Vocally it is showing a different side to my voice I think, I have loved that this album has allowed me to show a little more diversity in the vocals.

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Check out EMMA DYKES below
Website | Facebook  | Instagram  | Twitter 

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BUY THE RIDDLE OF LIFE HERE

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Emma Dykes has today unveiled her sophomore album The Riddle of Life. It follows her debut album, Pay it Forward, and was three years and multiple countries in the making.

‘I feel like both me and the music I make have grown and changed a lot with life over that time,’

says Dykes, and this is evident in the 11-track release that may not have the answers but certainly makes the listener feel like it’s all going to be okay. The album was recorded at Alex the Great (Nashville), Club Roar (Nashville) and Love Hz (Sydney) studios and produced by Matt Fell. Co-writers on the album include Roger Corbett, Matt Scullion, Lachlan Bryan and Drew McAlister, who helped pen Dykes’ latest single ‘All I’m Gunna Get’.

‘The album follows the same important principles that people have come to expect from my music,’ says Dykes, ‘but it opens up to a wider variety of sound and feel. It is a brighter look at some of the darker parts of life and I think that’s what we all experience most days: the ups, the downs and everything between. So we choose to be grateful and push through.’

Before pursuing music, Dykes worked as a rural emergency nurse and this shines through her songs. Golden Guitar winner Luke O’Shea commented on the ‘calming energy about her that is a combination of empathy and strength – essential to being a Registered Nurse, but thankfully this also transcends through her voice and into her beautiful songs.’ Dykes has dedicated The Riddle of Life to a fellow nurse and dear friend named Ric who lost her battle with a brain tumour after an extremely brave and courageous fight.

‘I listened to it this morning,’ she said, ‘and had a small tear and big goosebumps as I realised how real it is. I hope you can feel the depth of the topics but leave with positivity and silver linings ringing true in your ears.’

The eponymous single, ‘The Riddle of Life’ was released last year and was #3 on the Australian Country Songwriters Top 40 Most Requested Songs for 2019. It also debuted at #9 on the iTunes Country Singles Chart. Dykes sings as she lives her life – wanting to give to others and celebrate her stories and experiences through song. What’s come as a result of that is a heart-warming, smile-inducing album that serves up plenty of emotion with a side of hope. The dessert? Well, that’s catching Dykes lives as she tours the tracks over the coming months:

Saturday 29th February
Laurieton United Services Club
Laurieton, NSW

Friday 20th March
Laurieton United Services Club
Laurieton, NSW

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AMNPLIFY – DB