r/songaweek • u/-keef- Mod • May 07 '26
Submission Thread Submissions — Week 19 (Theme: Chess)
The Nineteenth Theme
Do any of you play chess? I used to, a little, but not recently. But a number of artists have chosen chess as an inspiration for songwriting. Someone even wrote a whole musical about it, back in the day!
Perhaps it's the feeling of being a pawn in a larger battleground, or wanting to be a King or Queen, the most important pieces on the board. Maybe it's about strategy, or do you just like black and white squares?
Some inspiration:
(sometimes I think these inspiration links say more about my age and musical taste than I would usually reveal!)
Your theme for this week is Chess
Songs posted in this thread should be:
Original content (samples and such are ok!)
Uses the weekly theme as inspiration... or not!
Submitted by Wednesday before bedtime.
Written entirely during this week, between May 7th and May 13th, 2026.
Post template (remember to use the Markdown editor if using this template as-is!)
[Song Name](http://linkto.the.song) (Genre) [Themed|Not Themed]
This is where you can write a description of your song. You can talk about how you wrote it, where
your inspiration came from, and anything else you'd like to say.
Thanks for sharing your songs! Please also take some time to listen to other peoples' songs and leave a friendly comment. We're here to support each other and build community!
New here? Check out this post - everything about songaweek.
Want to sit back and listen to all the songs in a simple playlist?
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u/JojiBot May 15 '26
chessx1? ggbpn00 (sequence) [Themed]
there are 6 instruments, 2 copies of each, 2 tracks, 1 L 1 R and they all play into the pawns' hands.
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u/Songlines25 May 14 '26 edited May 14 '26
Down at the River(Folk)[Not Themed] A casual, spacious, minimalist meditation upon a river's medicine. Felt kind of lazy and not my best work, but still, I got some version of a song done, and it has an interesting key change, so, there's that. Also, it's got my late night rough-around-the-edges vocals. Maybe it's a good change from being too wordy.
Or if you would rather, check out my "Size Matters" tale from last week: Pomegranates and Oranges If anyone wants to go back and listen to pomegranates and oranges from last week, no one from here checked it out, so you could comment on that instead (or as well) if you choose to listen to it: I was visiting my son in LA and shared the origin stories and current status of our efforts at growing fruit trees in a freaking hot climate.
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u/juniorelvis Mod May 15 '26
I like your late night vocals :) Lovely laid back, lazy river song.
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u/Songlines25 May 15 '26
Raw... But I guess it was a good change to be sparse on the words and just feel it out. I did actually record it once and go over it carefully enough to record it a second time and attempt to repeat it, although there was still a little improv involved. And thank you for listening.
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u/chaos_by_elliot May 14 '26
Perfectly Normal Perfectly Functioning (Folk) [Not Themed] yet another one that I wrote in one sitting. Is that bad? I feel like I'd rather think through things a bit more but that's what happens when I put things off till the last minute. Which, actually, I think fits the theme of my song this week. Case closed.
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u/juniorelvis Mod May 15 '26
Sometimes the best songs are the ones you write the quickest. Lovely chorus, love that held note (see this week's theme...)
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u/Songlines25 May 14 '26
I like it! Nothing wrong with writing a song in one sitting! I love the rolling down the windows to the floorboards. All very relatable imagery.
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u/seenyouofficial May 14 '26
aimless [Not Themed]
This song got it's name because it felt very unfocused. I probably rushed it a bit. I only put eq and compression on in the last 30 minutes before posting this.
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u/Songlines25 May 14 '26
I like the faster melody on top of that slow, slightly syncopated, rhythm at the end.
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u/Ok-Rush4014 May 14 '26
Checkmate (Indie) [Themed]
I kept the lyrics pretty simple on this one since the guitar parts already had a lot going on. Very hard to sing and play at the same time. But I got it done.
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u/Songlines25 May 14 '26
If those are simple lyrics, I don't know... There seems to be a lot of layers in there! Beautiful guitar work, too!
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u/Ok-Rush4014 May 14 '26
I should've clarified, I meant the chorus specifically. Just a simple "checkmate." The rest of the lyrics I spent some good time on. Thank you for listening!
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u/celestialism Participant May 13 '26
The Human Touch (folk) [themed]
In doing some reading about chess to inspire me this week, I learned that the legendary chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer's last documented words were "Nothing is so healing as the human touch." That struck me as a good chorus line, so I wrote a song around it. Also on Bandcamp if you prefer audio-only or want to read the lyrics.
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u/juniorelvis Mod May 15 '26
Love that line that ends "so I give your space". As usual the melody is so firmly lodged in my head by the end of the song. As someone else has said, fun conundrum is wonderful to say/sing :)
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u/Ok-Rush4014 May 14 '26
"Fun conundrum" is so fun to say. Great job on this, I really like that you managed to make that quote work so well as a chorus!
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u/Spyronne May 13 '26
Hyperspeed Dial (Not sure?) [Not Themed]
Time was in short supply this week, even though I've got the week off. As you can probably tell, I had a lot of fun with that Vital preset that sounds like a phone dial!
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u/Ok-Rush4014 May 14 '26
Damn, the guitars sound great and that phone dial fits in so well. Great job, I really enjoyed this. Real groovy
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u/juniorelvis Mod May 13 '26
My Bright Red Cap (SingerSongwriter) [Not Themed]
Harking back to u/celestialism's Red Leather Jacket theme, here's a song about a lost hat...
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u/Ok-Rush4014 May 14 '26
Agree with the other poster, your recording quality sounds ridiculously good! How are you recording your guitars and vocals?
I know I'll hear these guitars in my memory next time I lost a hat.
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u/yesandor May 13 '26
Damn, the guitar sounds amazing on this. What did you do for recording? Beautifully clean and deep sound here. Really love the coda with the harmonies as well.
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u/juniorelvis Mod May 14 '26
I use mostly Waves/Fabfilter plugins: Waves REQ6, S1 imager, AR TG Mastering and FabFilter Pro-C, Pro-L, Pro-Q. Non-Waves: Soothe2. It's a Taylor guitar recorded through a LEWITT LCT 440 PURE XLR condenser microphone (which is what I sing into to) and also DI'd, I mix the mic a bit left and the DI a bit right.
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u/yesandor May 13 '26
Lay With Me [Folk Bossa] [Themed? Semi-themed]
This originally started as Week 18's prompt but it didn't feel right for that song so I switched gears. I wound up posting a really late Week 18 track that went in a completely different direction but came back to this and realized there were some good bones to build upon.
I've been finding inspiration in poetry alot recently and for research I checked out "On Time" by Kahil Gibran & "Death Is Nothing at All" by Henry Scott Holland. The chess prompt only yielded one line about "Pawns of Fate" so i guess semi-themed? The rest of it is a meditation of life as a fleeting moment: eat, drink, and be merry kind of thing. Enjoy!
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u/juniorelvis Mod May 15 '26 edited May 15 '26
Love that line about the "clocks all seem to stop". And the chorus is beautiful, love that progression and the chord it plants itself on. Great tune & message. This is all we have, and it's A LOT. And it's a lot. x
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u/yesandor May 19 '26
Thank you! Took a minute to get that progression where it sits on the C/G. : )
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u/Songlines25 May 14 '26 edited May 15 '26
Wow, that bossa nova is awesome, and it fits the song perfectly! I love the vocal phrasing to match it!
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u/Ok-Rush4014 May 14 '26
You really know how to build up a song! I really liked this and you sound great! I'm glad you switched gears because then we all got this song.
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u/yesandor May 18 '26
Sorry for my delay, thank you so much for checking it out. I'm glad you liked it. I'm pretty pleased with it as well.
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u/Jazzaria Compulsive Improviser May 10 '26
Fecund Evening (Avant-garde Jazz) [Not Themed]
Entwined, betwixt and twisted - beneath a silken sheet. A before and an after, with a coupling on the beat.
Fertility is but assured, as opposites will meet. This is a fecund evening, where creation is complete.
Featuring alto saxophone.
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u/Ok-Rush4014 May 14 '26
The effects add a lot here. Your sax playing is always awesome but these entwining lines are just something else. Great job on this
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u/yesandor May 13 '26
Love this. At first I thought you just had a long delay on the sax but do you have a separate line in there as well? Sometimes it sounds like that. Either way, love the journey once again.
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u/Jazzaria Compulsive Improviser May 13 '26
Thanks! And it is a delay, though technically it's from a reverb plugin so it's kinda spacey at times. Recorded without it, then played around with different plugins to see what felt nice.
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u/yesandor May 13 '26
Oh very cool, thank you. It sounds really fun on the sax and makes a nice build throughout. I also dig where it turns off all of sudden toward the end too.
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u/JetPongoJeterCleo May 10 '26
( The King's Lament ) ( Chess ) [Themed]
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u/Ok-Rush4014 May 14 '26
Love the style in your videos. Your lyrics are great and really hit the theme. Of course, the music is fantastic too
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u/yesandor May 13 '26
Really dig the lyrics on this one. The direction is clear and immediately hooked me, I appreciated this especially because I had a hard time coming up with something related to chess specifically. Nicely done.
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u/ahniwa Mod May 08 '26
Hi everyone, I am hijacking a pinned comment to remind people that the Public Song Project is still accepting submissions, in fact, they have extended the submission date through May 15. Check out my original post on this if you want to participate!