If Byron Bay alt-rock outfit Moreton’s new single See Yourself kicks you right in the feels, you’re not alone, with the guest vocals from beloved Irish artist James Vincent McMorrow bringing lead singer Georgia Potter to tears in the studio.
It’s a collaboration that came about after they toured together back in 2017, with McMorrow noting: “The lyrics just felt like something I wanted to sing at that exact moment that it was sent to me, I literally grabbed some mics and hung out in a walk-in wardrobe amongst the clothes just singing it over and over.
“It's pretty rare that someone sings a lyric like that, that is so on the nose in terms of its subject matter, and it doesn't come across remotely insincere. It's a tough prospect to land a song like that and Georgia really nailed it, so I'm grateful to be part of it, and I hope that when people hear it, that they find a fragment of themselves in it.”
Georgia Potter takes us behind the scenes of See Yourself:
In the studio, you always hope a bit of magic will show up. Of course, you never know if it will. You just gotta do your best to coax it along, send it an invitation and lay out all the silver, just in case. Hope it’ll show up and play.
We read about those magic moments in rock’n’roll history books, and it took me a long time to find my own kind of magic in the studio. After a degree in Audio Engineering and Production, I was used to a studio environment that I couldn’t relate to, where every take could be tweaked and edited until every flaw was rendered smooth, and with it every interesting and magical evidence of the performance’s humanity. I mean, it’s right sometimes, to make gloss, but I’m a folk singer, and I had to learn to let sleeping flaws lie.
I stopped using studios, making only demos on my phone memos so they were utterly unusable, so we always had to start from scratch for the Moreton records.
When we made our first EP, we recorded live, uneditable and not to click, so we had to choose takes for their energy and vibe, and weigh up their ‘errors’ against it. Working this way was how I learnt to invite magic to a session.
We've made this new record the same way. Put in the work in rehearsal, show up ready to be fresh. Bring friends and loved ones, fine whiskey and good food. We always cook and eat together. Dim the lights. Make eye contact. Step outside yourself and into the sound and each other. Don’t look at the waveform on the screen, use your ears not your eyes. Try not to perform your parts, but to breathe life into a song that another soul, a stranger, might be moved by.
On the night we recorded See Yourself - at Ian Haug from Powderfinger's beautiful Airlock Studios - we didn’t know for sure if James [Vincent McMorrow] was going to do the duet. James took us on tour in 2017 and we all became mates and James and I had kept in touch.
We'd been talking about the duet and he was keen because he'd liked the song on tour, but it wasn't locked in yet. Regardless, this song was going on the record. So there we were, our best selves on show, all together in the live room, just like rehearsal, levels checked. Magic invited.
Take one. I don’t even remember when I knew it was going well, I just remember feeling sparkly. And when it was over, all four of us looked at each other and started grinning. Cheeky shy grins, like when you know a funny secret. We didn’t say anything and we waited for the producers Matt Neighbour and Alex Henrikkson to come in on the headphones. I think he made a joke about it being "pack-up time" and we all just knew it was the one. We took another pass or two for safety’s sake, but you could just hear it in take one. Even the wailing vocals in the instrumental was just a warm-up improvisation. We caught a little tiny bit of magic on tape I think, something in the room that was beyond all four of us.
We took a break, I stepped out into the warm night air, grabbed my phone and messaged James straight away and said: “We got it in one take.” He replied almost straight away and said he was keen, and within a few weeks, James had recorded his parts in Dublin and sent them over to us. I left the room while Neighbour was importing James' vocals, I wanted to hear them fresh. I knew he'd sung some harmonies and I was so excited. That first listen, hearing James' voice come in after mine for verse two, made me weep. I'd always known this song should be a duet, and to hear your imaginings come through in the final thing is a rare and special treasure.
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