Aurora's songwriting process

It starts with a quote... or a sound...

Hi.

A couple of weeks ago I received an email, asking me if I could take a deep dive into Aurora’s songwriting process. I fell for the idea immediately, and I think it was very cool to be asked for a specific topic to write about.

During the process of collecting information, I found that this was no easy task to complete. It feels as if the finished song is just one spot by the end of a river leading out to the vast sea, then her process of creating this song is as diverse as the many streams that built up and led to that moment. I will try to show you some of those flows of water, and hopefully we can grasp some of the thoughts and processes of this brilliant mind.

I’m Aurora Aksnes,
from the west coast of Norway.
I’m a dreamer, and a thinker.
I write music out of all those thoughts
hoping it means something
to others than myself.

Quote: Aurora¹

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The beginning

It was autumn the year 2002. Aurora walked from the school-bus in a rainy west-coast weather. Aurora hadn’t gone straight home from the bus-stop, but rather taken a detour through the forest where she played with a cat. She felt free after the buzzing noises in the 1st graders classroom. She was soaking wet when she finally came home, and her mother found a towel to dry her up. She got some new clothes and was wrapped in a blanket. Her mother put on “Suzanne” by Leonard Cohen, and Aurora experienced that music can make you forget time for a while. She could not understand all the words, but she could feel its emotions. Calm. Just as she felt when she was out in the nature: ²

Humans needs security, and we look for security until we find it. Even if it takes our whole life. I, at least, learnt that belonging, happiness and calmness may be found in other things than humans and confirmations. That there exists things inside us that can make us feel joy. That there exists a best friend in music. Understanding.

This was the same day she found the old piano in the attic, and she understood that she could make music that made others feel as good as it had made her.

Painting music

Moving forward to June 2014, to the earliest article I have found where Aurora describes her music and her creative process.³

I always make myself a cup of tea, before I place myself on the floor and close my eyes hard. Then I begin to paint. I try to convey my emotions through colours. Thereafter I step over to my piano to find the melody, and once the melody is found the words comes quite quickly.

This was how she described the process of writing “Awakening”. She also said that she collected all her songs, or her paintings, in a book, often with the title of the song next to each image. At this point she had somewhere between 60-70 songs written.

She describes that she listens to music to feel things, and that she wanted to make music that could help people process their own stuff. She said that she wanted her music to help people feel better, and therefore she had to make emotions her main ingredient in her writing. She was asked about what she was processing when she wrote “Awakening”, and she answered:⁴

I wrote a lot about things I have experienced, that still is quite personal. In addition I write about things I know nothing about, things I presume, and I try to understand how it feels. Then I often write stories about people. “Awakening” is a story about a girl, but I don’t want to destroy the song for anyone, so I don’t want to tell what it’s about.

Later that autumn she was again asked about what her songwriting process looked like. I can imagine it was a difficult question for Aurora, but she said that: “I never know, it’s different every time. But there is always a feeling or a memory that starts the whole process, then comes either a melody or the first line. It depends. There is no routine, just something that happens⁵ “.

Though she often writes her music alone, she also has attended writing camps and met other songwriters to learn more. One such event was in Bergen in 2017, and she said that in cooperation with others she might get inputs that makes her songs even better. She was put in a group with the Norwegian Ida Martinesn Botten, James Earp from England and an English duo called The 23rd. James said about Aurora that she “can come up with like 700 melodies if she hears only a couple of piano-chords.⁶ “.

I have watched, with a decent amount of tips from

Fabrice

a whole bunch of older and newer interviews of Aurora on YouTube, and as I showed in the quote above, we know that her process of making a new song varies a lot.

Only a few weeks ago, Aurora could not resist spending some time by the piano that was place backstage at the Royal Albert Hall in London, UK. The camera-people beautifully captures what the makings of a new song might look like.

During the period when Runaway was reaching new highs on all the global charts back in 2021, Aurora had a whole lot of interviews and small-talks. In one of them, she spoke to Bollywood Hungama's senior journalist Monica Yadavshe, and was asked about her writing process (edited by me):⁷

It's quite different from time to time. Sometimes I just come up with a lyric - or a thing I think I want to say. Like a little quote that I can get inspired by, and I just have to write it down somewhere. Then, maybe next day, I can write the song out of that little idea or thought I had yesterday. That happens all the time. I write ideas down every minute, or like all the time, every day. So they're just always there.

But when I really want to write something from here (holds her hands in front of her heart) - then I have to sit down with my piano, and it has to be completely quiet, and I just sit there for quite a long time. It's kind of like meditation, and I just try to really think, and really figure out what I need, and what I am feeling - and what are the people around me feeling, and what is the world feeling, and what would be nice for us to hear in a song right now. I try to kind of think about that, and suddenly you just start playing.

I often start just improvising first with the melodies, and then I can hear the the words kind of popping out of the melody. It's very organically. It kind of just comes. I can't really explain it, but it's very organically, and fluid like the ocean, you know. It's very beautiful.

I think it is safe to say that Aurora’s song-writing process is very variable, depending on what she has of available time, peace and instruments - and what emotions she needs to put into words and melodies. Let’s move on now, and take a look at the production of the written song.

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Production

I think this excerpt from the “Once Aurora” documentary perfectly describes what is happening during recording and editing a song. We see her play around with added backing vocals, and she tries to embody the song from different places in the room. As we can see in this scene from the documentary Once Aurora, Forgotten Love had different lyrics than the officially released version. Originally, the track was called The Beauty in Forgotten Love. In 2018, Aurora sang this song at some concerts and "teardrops are the corpses of a sweet goodbye" was part of the song's lyrics. Also, a harp version of Forgotten Love was officially released, where this phrase is included.

The first few seconds in the trailer that was made for the “Once Aurora” documentary gives us a small peek into Aurora’s mind. We see her walking about in the castle recording small tidbits of sounds, like the sound of switching on and off the lights. Sounds she may or may not use in the production of one of her songs.⁸

In an interview with Oberpfalz TV Aurora actually talks about this:⁹

… Because my hobby and my passion, and the one thing I need to do to survive, it feels like. Besides sleeping and eating and drinking; I need to write music. I need to write almost all the time. I write on my phone, like notes, you know. I just have to write down what's going on inside my head...

If I'm home, I would like to write the melody and the lyrics at the same time, but now I'm not home that much, so I have to write songs without having an instrument. That means I'm mostly writes just lyrics and poems, and I add the melody later, when it feels right...

… for me it's very natural how how you should build up a song, when it comes to the vocals and stuff like that. But, you know, I usually just write the songs and then I go to the studio and I meet the bass player, Odd Martin, and my drummer, Magnus, and they've been producing my album with me. The three of us have lots of fun with things to do, and we just explore. We try to just find out what's the best for this song. It's a very fun process and sometimes we'll be evolving. We're playing, and I can play the piano, and with a chord and sounds we can find in the room we are in. Field recordings. And then we also just find a sounds that i love, and in plug-in samples. I will use that as well. It's fun with a good combination of the two…

As we understand, the song is being developed all the time. Sometimes even after its been released. Lyrics change and how she performs them change. She is really fluid as the floating river, bending and pushing until she has found the perfect way for her song.

Now - Let me here some words from you. Do you meddle with any creative activities? Do you have any routines to get you started? When I write or draw, I always start the process by making myself a cup of tea, put on some easy listening and place the necessary accessories out before me.

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Community spotlight

@ Skyloftwing on Instagram

I guess it is not a surprise that I want to highlight this account today. After all, she did make me a beautiful profile photo, and that for free. I am amazed by people’s kindness sometimes.

Her name is Bianca, but she goes by “Skyloftwing” on all her platforms. She is a 3d artist at Dumativa Game Studio, who makes games, music and more. Bianca also has an online site where you can make contact if you want something made for you.
She takes commissions, and you can find the site here.

skyloftwing

A post shared by @skyloftwing

At her Instagram page you will find many beautiful art-pieces like this one. It’s a lot inspired by Aurora (of course 😍), but you will find many other lovely works by her. I hope you head over there and give her some praise.

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Fabrice’s Corner

This section is all new, but I thought I should begin to include it in my newsletter from now on. He is constantly working to keep us all updated on Aurora in the world of YouTube. Lately he has made a “starter-playlist”, making it easier to find videos to recommend to friends or YouTube reactors.

He is also currently working on collecting the best looking/sounding covers of Aurora songs, and I can only imagine how many songs he must listen to (and watch) to be able to make such a list.

His community page contains daily posts of information on latest releases on YouTube. It might be new reactions, new concerts uploaded or other thing related to Aurora on the platform. This community section is always the first place I visit when I open the YouTube-app. Here is a direct link to his homepage there

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Final words

Phew.

It’s OK to scream now: “MY GOD! IT’S A LOT!

We have dived into Aurora’s songwriting in this one, and I hope you found it entertaining. Diving into stuff like this is very exciting for me, and I feel lucky to live in a time where all this information is lying about on the internet.

Please, if you like what you read here, let people know it exists, and help them find it. The button below leads to a page that makes it easy to share on Instagram, Facebook, e-mail or wherever you like to spend your time to relax. Thank you 💚

Have a day
Rune

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Sources

1. Gorman, F. (2014. September 11). Spotlight interview: Aurora Aksnes. JaJaJaMusic.com. Retrieved 2024, October 21 from https://web.archive.org/web/20150215200641/http://jajajamusic.com/2014/09/spotlight-interview-aurora-aksnes-london-lexington/

2. Aksnes, A. )2020, December). Regnværsdagen. Juleboka 2019 (p.4-5). Erlik Oslo.

3. Haugedal, S. (2014, June 2014). Sommerens musikkhåp. Aftenposten. Retrieved 2023, February 24 from https://web.archive.org/web/20140702051200/http://www.kmag.no/blogg/sommerens-musikkh%C3%A5p

4. Arukwe, A. (2014, August 12). Vanskelig nok å være seg selv. NRK P3. Retrieved 2023, March 19 from https://p3.no/vanskelig-nok-a-vaere-seg-selv/

5. Gorman, F. (2014. September 11). Spotlight interview: Aurora Aksnes. JaJaJaMusic.com. Retrieved 2024, October 21 from https://web.archive.org/web/20150215200641/http://jajajamusic.com/2014/09/spotlight-interview-aurora-aksnes-london-lexington/

6. Ullebø, K.K. (2017, April 22). Her blir kanskje din nye favirittlåt skrevet. Bergens Tidende. Retrieved 2024, October 21 from https://www.bt.no/kultur/i/py1x6/her-blir-kanskje-din-nye-favorittlaat-skrevet

7. Yadav, M. (2024). Aurora Aksnes on the viral ‘Runaway’ trend and returning to painting. Bollywood Hungama. Retrieved 2024, October 11, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMdzVio7JpA&list=PLtgoOJuVpwhs3be6S79IUgG4fnbWAH89Q&index=255

8. IDFA. (2019, November 7). IDFA 2019 - Trailer - Once Aurora. Retrieved from YouTube 2024, October 26 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IeyU_vCFyM

9. AndBro. (2018, June 14). Aurora. Oberpfalz TV. Retrieved 2024, October 26 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POJQj5eb5EU&list=PLtgoOJuVpwhs3be6S79IUgG4fnbWAH89Q&t=583s