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Dina

@dinxters

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🍂🎶“I don’t care what happens to me / I just want art and music and you”

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Message to 18-year old me who started this song: “hello there, everything you write continues to be relevant to my life, thank you” … My songwriting spans decades - I love that I can pick up a half-finished song from 9 years ago and fill in the missing lyrics, pulling inspiration from new experiences or memories. I lay out the kindling and wait years for the fire to finally catch.

My favourite old lyric is “Should I seek guidance from a higher place?” And my favourite new lyric is: “Reaching, palm up, underhanded” - underhanded both describes the physical action of someone holding your hand, and also reflects the disingenuous quality of the gesture (when you know it’s not coming from a place of genuine interest, as was the case here). Love this! by @dinxters

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4 months ago

Secret that is not so secret: this is my favourite song I’ve ever written. Which is interesting to me because I don’t actually think this is my most well-written song, nor is it my best performed. It’s just the most cathartic. It sucks the poison right out of my chest. I always feel better after I sing it. I crystallized such a potent feeling and now I can crack this open whenever I need a little hit of emotion.

My favourite lyric in my favourite song? “Leaving much to be desired” by @dinxters

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4 months ago

A part two - an ending to a song I posted earlier in the month (All Summer). I like when my perspective changes over the course of writing a song, so much so that I simply must include that shift in the song itself. This was supposed to be a song about fear, and in the process of writing it, I somehow stumbled upon some courage. “So WHAT, if it goes awry?” and “what if it ends well?” became my new guiding beacons. I’ve been a lot bolder since I wrote this song last summer!

I really love the line “if I can’t wreak havoc, I’ll recover” because of the internal matching sounds. It’s especially enjoyable to me that it is split across two words with “wreak havoc” and contained inside one word with “recover”. Love when words word. by @dinxters

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4 months ago

Hid a fun lil double meaning in the opening line: “held me back” can mean reciprocation, returning affection (think “you hug someone and they hug you back”) but it ALSO refers to stagnation, keeping someone from growing or reaching their full potential (think “you slowed me down, you held me back”). I had the “hold me back” double meaning idea months ago, and finally wrote some real lyrics for it on a walk tonight!

I like representing being closed off to love as a closed fist… it’s only when you loosen your white-knuckled grip that your hand is free to hold someone else’s! (How could anyone hold your hand if it’s perpetually balled up into a fist?) by @dinxters

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4 months ago

I would normally NEVER share a song this early in development, but I wanted to try something new! I love and hate my first drafts… I could go line by line and let you know which lyrics are beloved, and which lyrics I am eager to toss into the fire pit… but in the spirit of letting things exist as they are, I’m gonna leave this unannotated.

This song is about curiosity: the desire to step outside of one’s own life and peer into another’s. I see an innocent, straightforward, earnest version of this song, and it sits adjacent to a version that is a little bit uglier, harsher, more revealing… it’s all potential energy right now, and I’m excited to see where I land! by @dinxters

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4 months ago

If you were wondering how some of my songs form, here’s one example! I test out various melodies over the same chord progression, seeing what sticks, what doesn’t… “Is this here a verse? A chorus? Maybe the bridge? What if these parts overlapped? Let’s pull this out into its own song actually, it doesn’t fit here…” etc etc. All four sections may very well make it into the final song, but right now they feel like disjointed pieces. I will figure it out!

I love a lot of lyrics in this, let’s go section by section:
A) “I feigned nobility / Took some liberties” - there’s a medieval surface, and some uh… “mid-evil” underneath
B) “At the curtain call of a Scottish play” - the COOLEST way to describe surviving to the end of an accursed, disastrous situation 😎
C) This section feels generic to me, but it was the most raw authentic version of what I was feeling at the time (the only lyric where I cried as I first sang it out!)
D) “I was bound to ruin this anyway” - I like the way I say “bound” here by @dinxters

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4 months ago

What a gift, to be able to sing these four songs side by side today. I’m so glad I captured these snapshots in time. All of my songs are crystallized moments, experiences, feelings, thoughts… these four are unique in that they are bound to each other across time. Cool! 20 and 21, 22 and 23, I affectionately refer to them as sister songs. Apologies to 24-27, no annual songs for you… just the usual life songs!!

Yes, this is the end of the Be A Little More Saga! I like that we found some of the things we lost along the way… the harmony, the title of the song… even got a bit of the song length back. “I don’t know what’s next, but I have to see” is my fave lyric! by @dinxters

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4 months ago

Hey, not every year is gonna be great! Another wonderful snapshot.

My favourite part to sing is “halfway done so um”. Satisfying! by @dinxters

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4 months ago

Thought I was only posting one song tonight? Pah! And so began a tradition… Another very fun snapshot in time! Typing out the lyrics made me realize just how many questions I ask in this song… interesting! Uncertainty was certainly a theme in my life.

“Not saying Blackjack isn’t fun, but now I’m missing Crazy Eights” is my favourite lyric. Substituting ages for card games that heavily feature those numbers? Yeah, I like that. ♠️♦️♥️♣️ by @dinxters

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4 months ago

She - and by she I mean 20-year old me - was adorable… I LOVE revisiting this song. What a cute snapshot of a milestone. I’ll never have that brain again, but I’ll always have this.

The melody on “to know that something’s changed” is my favourite part of this song. I am constantly resisting the urge to slap that E7 F D chord progression into every song I write!! by @dinxters

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4 months ago

Then again, I ought to learn how to handle myself when I’m NOT feeling calm! I’ve definitely gotten better at grounding myself when I’m nervous, but when those nerves DO take over? It’s awful, it’s terrible, it’s kind of hilarious.

I like how many syllables rhyme between the “I promise” and “But calm is” lines, but my favourite lyric is actually the very first one I wrote for this song: “There are questions that come to mind when I’m calm enough” by @dinxters

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4 months ago

And here’s a song about someone doomed to repeat history, never learning from past mistakes, misspeaks, missteps. What mistake did I make today? Well for one thing, I pulled an all-nighter. Missing out on some solid REM… alas.

I originally started writing this when I was running late for a class, but now it has broadened to become the song I sing when I have just generally acted against my best interests. I like the phrase “untimely fate”… 🕰️ (and the ending - feels a tiiiny bit Larson-y to me!) by @dinxters

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