Creating a Concept Album

by A Alexander Hollins

Introduction

As a Popular and Commercial Music Major, I decided to write and produce a concept album for my Honors thesis, allowing me to explore the process of concept album creation while also demonstrating all of the skills I have honed at Loyola such as arrangement, performance, engineering, and mixing. That project became Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, an 11 song rock album about human connection, the joy of building bonds and the pain of losing them. The album doesn’t follow a narrative like Tommy by The Who or The Wall by Pink Floyd because I didn’t want to be limited by a single cast of characters. Instead, it follows the blueprint of Frank Sinatra’s In the Wee Small Hours, which features songs united by a common theme to make the album stand out as a cohesive artistic statement against the singles that were the focus of the time. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid also uses a few sound effects and pieces of conversation between myself and my bandmate Marco Saah to help the album feel more cohesive to the listener and reinforce some of the themes present in the songs. This webpage is constructed for you to scroll and listen to each song in album order while reading excerpts of corresponding analysis from the full thesis paper.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Track #1 - Sweat

“Sweat'' is a strong opening track as an accessible high-energy rock song, but also as a direct introduction to the concept of the record. The main character of the track spends his days monotonously, either working a dead end job that doesn’t require any thought (“I spend my days workin’ to survive / Gas, food, water, and the power in my lights / I can feel my brain rottin’ in my head”) or using substances to forget the state of his life saying, “Every Friday night, I erase my mind,” in the first verse and, “When you knock me down, I push away the pain,” in the final verse. This lifestyle has clearly taken its toll in the line, “I just can’t see the world now through the liquor stains.” And with the line “I’ve lain with the devil / For so long I must be a demon now,” the song indicates that the main character is so entrenched in his pattern that, without intervention, his life would remain in the same state. But in the chorus we learn that something has changed recently:

“I met this girl that makes me sweat
I met this girl that I don’t get
I’m always tryna read her mind
I might really quit this time”

The character has met someone that perceives the world differently than how he’s used to, which forces him to re-engage with life to interact with her, exciting him and inspiring him to possibly exchange his past habits for more active ones. This is also described by the ending line of each verse. The first verse has him drinking himself into a stupor, but ends with “lately I’ve been thinking of tryna wake up.” The second verse details his menial job, and ends with “But lately I’ve been thinkin’ of gettin’ ahead.” The verse and chorus also feature energetic and driving guitar riffs, further expressing the nervous excitement of being alert for the first time in a long time. All together, the song narrates a clear cause and effect: the main character started off in a negative place, but in connecting to a new person with a novel point of view, he was inspired to reevaluate his life and put in the effort to try a different path.

Track #2 - Open Up

The main character of “Open Up” is in pain (“Broken nose / Broken heart / You’ve been screamin’, bleedin’ out from the start”), and the narrator tries to help, but the main character pushes back, which the narrator describes as, “Closed your borders...That’s when you ran and tried to leave me blind.” The main character outwardly appears to be fine (“Can’t see no bruises / Can’t see no scars”), but they’re hurting themselves in an attempt to see the path forward from their trauma (“But you light yourself on fire tryna see in the dark”), and with the lines, “I see you smokin’ / In the rain / But you’ll never stop the bleedin’ you’re just stoppin’ the pain,'' the narrator reveals how the main character has been running from their feelings, only to delay the healing process. The narrator has skin in the game; they’re being forced to watch someone they care about collapse without being able to help, but I don’t think the narrator’s bias invalidates the conclusion. The main character is holding onto suffering because they’re not allowing themselves to process it, and if they opened up and shared their experience, it stands to reason they would feel better. In fact, the presence of the invested narrator reinforces the song’s connection to the album’s concept. If the narration were third-person, and the narrator did not have a character, the line “Open up if you wanna survive” could be interpreted as a mandate for the main character to open themselves up to their own emotions rather than to other people. Additionally, the presence of the invested narrator implies that love and support have always been just around the corner, and the main character only needs to reach out to receive it.

Track #3 - Snake

“Snake” is an uncertain song. The main character is in pain and wants to blame it on the character he’s speaking to, but he has a hard time committing as he works through his understanding of the situation. In the first verse he says he had a “delicate imbalance / A beautiful design” in his life, which sounds functional but precarious. The main character quickly pivots to accusations, saying “You discovered my weakness...You took away my order,” directly attributing any loss of direction on the person he’s speaking to. The first verse ends with the line “And at first I felt fine,” which is sung with a bit of added stress and venom, as if the sabotage of his stability was made more insulting by initial deception. But the main character gains more clarity as the song continues. In the second verse he says, “I listened to your whisperin’,” as if to describe the way he was duped as subtle and intimate, making it all the more upsetting. But the following line counters with, “and you listened to mine,” admitting that the relationship was balanced and the intimacy wasn’t necessarily meant to be destructive. The next line is, “I let you wrap around me,” bringing forward an image of suffocation, seduction, and helplessness, but that again is balanced with, “And it felt so good at the time.” The verse ends with “You may have put me off balance / But I’m not sure that you tried,” considering the option not to pin the main character’s negative experience on the audience entirely. Whereas the first verse plays the victim of a direct assault, the second verse wonders if the attack was intentional at all. The speaker reaches a full 180 degree change of heart in the third verse with:

“I guess I grew dependent
On the warmth of your touch
I fell in love
And loved a little too much”

where the narrator turns the blame entirely on himself. Overall, the song demonstrates how vulnerable relationships can be, and how things can unintentionally turn ugly after starting from a good place, especially if someone enters a relationship without being stable enough to support it. In watching the narrator talk himself down from his initial wrath, the song exemplifies how negative experiences in relationships can create unfoundedly aggressive emotions.

Track #4 - Lois and Sam

“Lois and Sam” is about two people whose hang-ups got in the way of their happiness. The first verse establishes that Lois and Sam are both overly controlling. Lois “never gave anybody any time / She acted like mistakes were capital crimes,” meaning she’s quick to judge harshly, and her introduction ends with, “The sun hurt her eyes, so she closed the blinds,” telling the audience that she would rather take the nuclear option of cutting herself off entirely than face potential pain. Sam, on the other hand, think’s he should be in charge of everyone and possibly doesn’t have the empathy to understand that he’s wrong, evidenced by the line, “he saw the world as a diorama, people as toys.” The first verse ends with the characters falling for each other, but cracks show in the second verse. Lois continues her avoidant behavior (“Lois never left the house, might as well have been dead”), and Sam “thought it was time to take a stand,” intending to change an important part of her. They break up, and the song gives us two key lines in the third verse to wrap up. Once Sam gets his things from Lois’ home the song reveals “All Lois owned was an empty chair,” implying that Lois has foregone belongings in search of complete safety. Then the final verse ends with “both their hearts broke as he walked away.” This is the final indictment of their behavior. Lois ends the story living in a way that most would call miserable, and Sam loses his love. It could be argued that, because they’re such control freaks, they may be more comfortable at the end of the song than when they were together. But “both their hearts broke” implies they ended the song feeling worse than when they began, and that their connection, though inherently risky, was more important than complete control.

Track #5 - LOVE.

“LOVE” is the only cover on the album, having originally been performed by Kendrick Lamar, but it was chosen in part because it still fits the concept. If the title isn’t indication enough, the chorus features the lyrics, “[if I] don’t got you, I got nothin’,” “I wanna be with you,” and a plaintive plea to “love me.” The narrator is singing to someone he cares deeply for, and he switches between describing his level of commitment and how that person makes him feel. He sings that he would “backstroke oversea” for her, and he wants to be with her “only for life.” At the same time, he sings that she’s got him “feelin like Tyson.” Invoking Mike Tyson, one of the most successful boxers on the planet, implies that she makes him feel wildly strong and powerful, a very attractive and consequential level of support. The second verse ends with “I want your body, your music / I bought the big one to prove it,” which sounds like buying a big diamond on a wedding ring but could be interpreted as any big relationship-defining purchase like a house. But if the exact purchase was key, then the exact purchase would have been written in. The point stands that the main character is so committed to this relationship that he is willing to buy whatever is necessary for it. I reinforced this in my performance by tracking the vocal on the final line of the second verse, “I’m like an exit away,” three times and up an octave, so that it communicates the powerful joy of being just about to see the main character’s love again.

Track #6 - (Let Me) Shine Your Shoes

I wrote “(Let Me) Shine Your Shoes” after listening to Nirvana’s “Pennyroyal Tea”. There’s a lot of self-hatred in Nirvana’s work, and I wanted to channel that aesthetic into a love song. Thus the main character of this track is willing to sacrifice and debase himself in any way to make the person he loves feel better. The lyrics open with “Feed me your boiling blood,” a bit of body horror to establish that Nirvana effect, and then follows with “Feed me your tears...I don’t care if they drown me,” to illustrate the narrator has no disregard for his own wellbeing in the relationship. Boiling blood is a common phrase for anger, and tears are often the physical manifestation of sadness, so the main character is saying he wants to take those feelings and bear their weight himself, so they don’t burden his partner. The same idea comes up later in the bridge with the lyric “I’d rather die than see you bleed.” This ultimate service is the point of the song’s main repeated line, “Let me shine your shoes,” as well. The pre-chorus gives the titular image more context saying, “You been walkin’ in my heart, and I know that I love you / You been walkin’ in your tears / Let me shine your shoes.” Shining shoes is commonly used to communicate a lesser position for a character because it shows the shoeshine character in service to another character, and it brings them down to the dominant character’s feet in a physically lower standing that looks like a bow. So in putting those pre-chorus lines together, the main character is explaining how, because of his love, he wants to bring himself down in submission to rid his partner of their sadness.

Track #7 - Preacher

The first verse of “Preacher” establishes what the main character’s life was like before he met the character of the Preacher. “I had a demon [that] Screamed bloody murder in my ears at night,” he explains. “It controlled me / Put the knife in my hand / Almost killed a man.” Our main character was harboring a darkness that put negative and upsetting thoughts in his mind and encouraged him to do bad things. What better way to get rid of that problem than an exorcism? The pre-chorus and chorus follow with:

“That’s when he came in through the radio
Out like a banshee, burned like coal…
He was the Preacher of Rock and Roll…
He’s the Preacher and he saved my soul”

Coming in through the radio makes natural sense because music and evangelism both use that medium regularly, and sounding like a burned banshee conjures the sound of iconic rock vocalists like Robert Plant and Jack White, as wailing like a banshee has become a trope of the genre’s vocals. Finally, “he saved my soul,” tells us that the exorcism was effective. This success is later reaffirmed in the third verse with the lines “[The Preacher] Made my sinning / And beginning / Feel like another man.”

After the Preacher and the main character’s origins have been established, the song describes how the Preacher continues to support the main character. The lines “He cries when I feel pain” and “He bleeds so I won’t stain” describe the Preacher experiencing emotion in the main character’s place. Instead of allowing the main character’s blood to create lasting trauma and stain him, the Preacher does the bleeding. The Preacher also “calms me from my rage” and serves as a “companion” and “my bastion / When abandoned,” describing the Preacher as a comforting and stalwart presence. As a result, the main character changes for the better in the third verse. The main character says the Preacher “Had me stand up tall,” and in another reference to demons or fallen angels, “Taught me not to fall.” The song ends with an outro refrain that references baptism singing “Washed my knife in the river / Washed my life in the river.” By the end of the song, the main character has been washed clean of darkness by his connection with the Preacher through rock and the radio.

Track #8 - Gigantic

Gigantic is the sound of people coming together to fight. The essential message is that any power can be challenged if enough people band together. That’s why the vocals are triple tracked and spread wide across the mix, adding two higher octave vocal tracks to emphasize the last line of each verse. It references the sound of voices joining together in defiance. “It’s gigantic / And it’s comin’ for you” they repeat. The threat of their power is ultimate. “We’re gonna use your grave as an example,” they warn. And as, “I ain’t got no regrets” indicates, their aim is true. The last line of the song is, “Because for what you put us through, you deserve every bit of what you’re gonna get.” That is the sound of people that have united against a common enemy and draw a massive amount of strength from that. The lyrics are simple, which references the way that defiant slogans are often quick and to the point, and the guitars play a massive plodding behind-the-beat riff that sounds like a giant lumbering forward to assault the seat of power. The riff is also in a blues scale, which gives the riff added pain and aggression. The music says more than the lyrics just as a march speaks with bodies and raw decibels. Thus the most emotional sections of the song are when the vocals are silent and Carter Wilkinson’s guest guitar solo wails away.

The track ends with a piece of conversation between me and Marco where I asked him if he ever thinks about legacy. What you hear is his unscripted answer. The important thing is how he frames legacy as “what people remember me for” and not his tactile achievements, which sets up the themes of the next song

Track #9 - How to Age Gracefully

“How to Age Gracefully” started when I watched a Youtube video by the same name from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). I was struck by the loneliness of the older people that were interviewed, and it inspired me to evaluate what could make life at that age meaningful. My song attempts to balance a wistful look to the past with the optimism of a life well lived. The verses are carried by the I-iv-IV-V progression that was overly common in early American pop and is known as the doo-wop or ‘50s progression. The song also features a swelling 3 cello arrangement that gives the song a lilting nostalgic feeling and could be reminiscent of an old movie. This sets the scene of a fading and forgotten generation. While these verse chords play, our narrator talks to her grandchild about her life. She “was once at the very edge of greatness,” but didn’t quite get there, and she didn’t think her grandkid would believe her “if [they] tried.” But she says she doesn’t regret it. She only regrets “the little things / Shots I wish I’d taken / Places that I’ve never been.” And all of that is peripheral. The words she returns to for every pre-chorus are

“When your parents had you
And I saw your open eyes, I
Knew that it was worth it
Worth the whole of all my life.”

Even though she reveals in the chorus that she thinks she’s dying, all she asks is for her grandchild to “hold [her] hand.” At the end of her life, the achievement she is proudest of is her family, and all she needs is for her family to be there for her until she goes. That connection was worth all the rest.

This song also ends with a bit of conversation, a line that I semi-scripted about how I’ve had to learn that I can’t do everything alone, how we need other people. This sets up the second to last song on the album

Track #10 - Gemini

“Gemini” serves as a foil for “Sweat”. Whereas “Sweat” explores the feelings of meeting someone new and being invigorated by that experience, “Gemini” expresses the morass and melancholy of feeling alone and incomplete. I wrote the song with no prior knowledge of the star sign “Gemini” other than that they’re twins. This inspired a song about being meant to be with someone, a cosmic pair, and not having that person in your life yet. In the first verse, the narrator describes crying “like a widow” when they were born, as if they were suddenly separated from a long-time partner. The implication of this line indulges in the concept that the narrator’s soul was somewhere else and with another soul before birth. The emptiness that is left in our main character brings them to “talk to the stars, using [their] teddy as a pillow,” as if the cosmos has some answers they cannot find, and their childhood is no comfort to them, indicated by the teddy bear, a classic childhood image, being used as nothing more than a head rest. The stars reply with a section that will be repeated as the chorus:

“You’re only half of the battle
You’ve only got one eye
You’re a gun without a barrel
You’re a Gemini boy, you’re a Gemini.”

Each of those images is missing an essential piece. A battle cannot be won without its second half; depth cannot be perceived with only one eye, and a gun cannot aim without a barrel. There is hope in that the main character may meet their complementary partner, but the song ends with the admission “I need somebody by my side,” and another run of the chorus.

Track #11 - Winnie-the-Pooh

The last song of the album is a reference to the last chapter of The House at Pooh Corner by AA Milne, where Christopher Robin grows up and leaves Pooh behind. The song explores that feeling of losing someone, or at least the version of them you’ve fallen for, and how we can use our past connections with people as benchmarks for how we change. The song is carried by a finger picked acoustic guitar line that feels warm and childlike against soothing and shifting nature sounds I recorded in Fontainebleau State Park. As it builds to its conclusion, the track gradually becomes more reverberant, as the guitar picks up a soft bassline, two harmony lines, and finally sparkling chord arpeggios to enhance the emotion. In the early verses, the main character pledges to be the audience’s “knight until the very end” even though they know the audience “cannot stay.” They spend the short time of the song simply being in the company of that person they love before they part. And after that last bit of time they have together ends, and all of the instrumental parts have reached crescendo, the song closes with the line “And when you come on home, I’ll show you how you’ve changed.” In that last moment, the narrator admits that even if they meet again, they’ll never recapture the moment. They can remind each other of the connection they used to have, but that’s all.

Conclusion

All in all, I feel I achieved the goal of creating a concept album, but the next time I approach a similar project I want it to be more focused. I wanted to open the themes of the album up beyond romantic love, which I believe is over represented in rock and pop music, but I may have gone a little far. “Preacher” makes sense to me as a song about human connection because one human imbued art with their personality and then another person took strength and comfort from that art. But I may see music as a more personal medium being a musician myself, and a non-musician listener might interpret “Preacher” as not about human connection, potentially hindering their understanding of the album as a concept. Though it is possible for audiences to interpret any of the songs contrary to my intention, so it may not be as consequential as I fear. I also intended for the album to carry a message in favor of human connection, and even though most songs communicate that to my ears, “Snake” and “Winnie-the-Pooh” hit on how forging connections can lead to loss and heartbreak, and the offer of service in “(Let Me) Shine Your Shoes” could be read as a relationship going so far that it leads to self-harm. In that sense, a narrative such as Tommy or The Wall could have been more effective. Seeing the fates of a single cast of characters over an extended story may have made for a more pointed meaning. Also, even though the interludes we had were quite effective, I would like to include more in the future. This album would not have been the place for it because we’re a young band, and I don’t think we’re quite ready to ask an audience to suffer through a ton of talking for us, but I think more could have been done with the concept. However, I achieved the most important goal of the project. The album is, in my interpretation, a full-length cohesive artistic statement on the experience of human connection that employs all of the skills I practiced at Loyola to guide its audience through an engaging experience from front to back.