Behind The Tracks: Poison Oak - Hope You Like The View (Single) (2022)

Hope You Like the View, was originally an idea brought to the band by Ray Pearson. He had the main riff and verse chords. We sent ideas back and forth changes things around, trying to work out what was best for the song. Ray then came through with a chorus idea, and then some lyrics for the verse.

I then took that (James), structured a solid melody, and wrote more lyrics for the verse, and then lyrics for the chorus. For this song, I really focussed on making the melody strong and progressive. As you can notice the melody in the first verse is quite different from the melody in the second verse.

When initially recorded the instrumental for the song with Mark Myers as a producer at Mt Kauri studio. Guitars were recorded with two amps at once Vox AC 30 and a Fender Delux. Ray and I went back to the studio a second time to record vocals and guitar tracks for the song and for myself really focussing on the melody, more so than the other previous songs that we have recorded. Once we got the first mix we decided on a fair bit of other instruments including synth as well as more vocal harmonies. The song took 9 months to finish.

The song reflects on someone's decisions, sort of metaphorically asking them, “do you like the view” from the poor decisions they have made, and the effect those decisions have had on people.