"Messed Up" was written by Kat Jax, Alan Glass & Livingstone Brown.
I'm a top line writer/topliner (create the lyrics, vocal melodies, harmonies to sit "on top" of a producer's instrumental track) although, I do play around with Cubase a lot and have recorded various bits of music and I edit a lot of tracks. But I would never call myself a producer, those guys are hugely talented! I tend to stick to what I do best and let them do the music. But I know what I like, what I want and sometimes try to create it, then get them to do it properly lol... sometimes!
The beautiful guitar in "Messed Up" was actually Alan Glass playing around one day after I did a session vocal with him and I got my laptop and £2.99 internet microphone out and recorded it into Cubase. I took it home, played with the arrangement a bit and couldn't stop spilling out lyrics, melodies and BVs all over the place to it. Sometimes you get inspired and nothing can stop you.
I've kinda figured out over the songs/years that I love lots of BVs and vocal arrangements. I record all my vocals myself so I literally, hide myself away get stuck right in, I LOVE IT!
It also means though, that there's no quality control!!!
Obviously, the track was massively poor in quality with the music being recorded through an internet microphone so my friend and producer Livingstone Brown kindly figured out Alans chords and put them down for me which even for Livingstone, who is a super-human, multi-talented, multi-instrumentalist, wasn't easy-peasy, as Alan Glass is also an incredibly talented, super-soulful, jazzy, funky guitar player (I'm so lucky to know these guys). Anyway, after getting the guitar just right (the way Alan did it LOL) Livingstone got his favourite instrument out, the bass! Wow, the tracks just got another level of beauty and I absolutely adore what he did to the track. Livingstone has been my teacher of all things computers, guitars, Cubase, midi and recording vocals for forever. He's fixed my laptops, given me audio interfaces, mics and taught me how to use them. With Al's tracks and Livingstone's lessons and everything else, I couldn't be here living my dream if it wasn't for these 2 guys.
Thank you you beautiful 2 black men LOL!
I love the fact that I chose this song as my 1st release as it actually was the start of my writing journey that I took on my own (with the help of others but took responsibility for, and actually did it!).
There were 2 tracks that I recorded off of Alan that day, the other is "Please Don't Leave Love" which will be released at some point in the near future.