Kyla's Blog

One Foot in Front of the Other September 25, 2022

This week I’m talking about the song One Foot in Front of the Other, which is the 9th track on the Bloom & Grow album.

I wrote this during the pandemic at a time when there were no organized races happening, and I was avoiding running at my husband’s request as we’d been hearing so much about healthy people dropping dead of heart attacks while running because they had covid and didn’t know it. I sat in my apartment and imagined all the things that typically go through my head when I’m running a long distance race. From the focus on form, the enjoyment of the atmosphere, to the concern that I didn’t eat right, that point where I deeply question why on earth I signed up for this, to the euphoria of running down the last stretch, crossing the finish line, getting my medal, my picture taken, and then lying in the grass with my legs in the air. I got quite emotional when I wrote this because those long distance races are quite emotional, and the thought that it might be a really long time before I got to do that again got to me. I also get pretty emotional when I sing it.

This came out of the SongFancy 5 in 5 songwriting challenge. The lyrical prompt was: What are you running towards? And I decided to take that very literally, but of course, running is such a great metaphor for life. The musical prompt was to write a song using only major chords. It’s one of two songs on the album that only has major chords. (Apathy is the other!) It’s quite unusual for me to write a song without a single minor, suspended, augmented, or diminished whatever chord so that was a fun experiment for me, and I’m very happy with how it turned out.

Something I enjoy doing when I release a song is seeing how many other songs with the same name are out there. Sometimes mine is the only one. (FYI, no one else has named a song ‘Shoe Shopping: A Poem’) But sometimes, there are countless songs with the same title, and I enjoy trawling through them, so I put together a playlist of songs called One Foot in Front of the Other. Since this song is intended to be a positive metaphor for keeping on keeping on I looked for other songs with the same title and a similar message, that were similarly upbeat. Something I love about using common phrases for song titles is that you can find other songs with the same title that have a different message. There were quite a lot of songs that were about putting one foot in front of the other to walk away from a relationship. There were also quite a lot of religious songs. I guess putting one foot in front of the other to walk towards god is also a popular theme. Since the theme of the album Bloom & Grow is all about moving past regret and past mistakes and overcoming obstacles to move forward, I looked for songs that shared those themes.

There were a number of instrumentals that I included. A pretty groovy number from a band called Form and Chaos, which is a title that appeals to me greatly. A song from Shady Monk that I think borrows some riffs from the Jackson Five, and puts me in mind of the Nyan Cat theme.

Finally, I see that one of my biggest guitar heroes has a song called One Foot in Front of the Other. Since I find few things more uplifting than Buckethead playing the guitar, I have him closing out the playlist.

Playlist on Spotify on Youtube Music