Burning Bridges

I wrote this song after making the difficult decision to end things with someone I’d been dating for a short while. At the time, I was still recovering from a pretty messy finish to a pretty messy previous relationship, and I just couldn’t imagine diving into a new relationship with anybody. She wanted more, and I wasn’t able to give her that. The idea of “burning bridges” came to me because I felt that I needed to isolate myself for a while to figure out how to move forward with my life. 

For many years, when I played Burning Bridges at gigs I would always open my set with it. This was because I wrote it sitting quite low in my vocal range, and it allowed me a natural way to warm up as I played. When I made the decision to work towards recording an album, I worked on some early versions of the tracks with my friend Bruce Pagunsan, a producer and former bandmate from years before. He believed in my voice enough to convince me that I could sing the chorus up a whole octave from where I’d originally written it, and bring a whole new energy and style to the track in doing so. The song has gone from being my “low vocals opener” to containing my highest recorded note on the whole album (as well as the lowest note in my lead vocals), and it really showcases my vocal range. It felt right to pay homage to it’s humble beginnings by having Burning Bridges be the opener to my album.

Here’s a clip of my demo recording of Burning Bridges – you can hear how drastically it’s changed