​Book Club // “Space Between the Days”

Book Club’s hand woven pop songs feature imaginative music with inventive lyricism. On “Space Between the Days” songwriter Robbie Horlick offers touching meditations on the diurnal cycle, juxtaposed with musings on a relationship. Horlick’s lyrical devotional is complemented with banjo plucks and intermittent train beats that evokes a charmed morning budding with a sense of the immediate and the possible. 
 
Pick up a copy of Dust of Morning here.
 
SC: There’s repeated images of morning, dreams, awake, peace throughout the song—can you tell me about this choice?

RH: I wish I could say something eloquent here. I mean, I could, but it'd be a little bit of Monday-morning quarterbacking. I'm not sure I had all of those words and themes in mind when I started writing the song. Honestly, the lyrics to this song were written very quickly, and the only thing I knew when I started writing was that I wanted it to convey the heaviness or ambiguity of what can seem so mundane if we don't look too closely at it. 
 
SC: The title “Space Between the Days” suggests night—yet the songs scenes are in the morning—can you tell me about this choice?

RH: Space Between the Days suggests night? I actually never thought of it so literally. I see the "space" between days as something much smaller and harder to measure, more a feeling than a time. So I guess I never noticed that it was set in the mornings and suggestive of night. I appreciate that perspective though. Who knows? Maybe my subconscious was thinking that all along.

SC: Can you tell me a bit about the dynamic shift between the verses and the chorus? Do these relate to the reflective themes in the song?
 
RH: Definitely. I wrote all the words at one time, and set it to music a little bit later, but I remember thinking how naturally the chorus chords and words seemed to fit together. I think reflective is a good word for the verses, and I actually think the chorus is a bit reflective . . . of that reflectiveness. If that makes sense. When I say, "if the dust of morning shakes / itself off you in great escapes / it will return to say it's peace / rearranged but thick as thieves", it's like the chorus is meant to reassure the verse. Like every day is the same dust, but different, gathered up and shaken off, and there's comfort in the pattern, even if it's full of doubt or questions. 

SC: What’s your writing process like? Do you write every day? Do you write on a schedule?

RH: I don't really have much of a writing schedule. Sometimes I enjoy getting up early, drinking coffee, and busting out the guitar and notebook – before all the distractions of social media checks and email etc. I think my thoughts are more pure when I haven't had to fight them through distractions. But that's a tough discipline. And also, there are always distractions, so I try and think of writing more as an exercise too – one I should be able to do without a magical time or place to channel that energy. Recently I've been writing words during the day, in random coffeeshop sessions, and working them into music with the guitar at night. But really, wherever I can find little patches of time to think or work on something, I will.  I might write a song in 10 minutes, and another might take me 10 years. It's fun not knowing how it's all gonna go.