Search For Me – Electronica Hip Hop song ballad

“Search For Me” – Words and Music by Gailyn Addis and Conrad Askland.

“Search For Me” was a song collaboration with Gailyn Addis. We wrote the words and music together, recorded the song and it was released through Orchard Music on the 1999 Gailyn Addis self-titled debut album. Gailyn was one of my all-time favorite vocal artists to record with and this is one of my favorite songs that we wrote together in preparation for her 1999 album release.

This was one of the last albums I recorded before switching over to the digital ProTools recording software around 2000. For this recording I was using 24 tracks of digital ADAT tape machines with a WR-DA7 Panasonic digital automated console. The automation of the console made the final mixes smooth, but the process of recording vocals was still done in the analog way of punching in and punching out (i.e. no digital cut-and-paste editing). All of the electronica MIDI tracks were run live through a sync track on one of the ADAT channels so mixes had to run in real time rather than the current DAW approaches where final audio is rendered through the computer. In short, these mixes were very time consuming and laborious to create. I loved all the time spent on my productions in the 1990’s, but when I switched to ProTools in 2000 my output increased probably six to ten fold through the improved work-flow and speed of editing in ProTools. It’s easy to take the current state of DAW systems (Digital Audio Workstations) for granted, but I remember well the days before that and how time-consuming it was to create finished song mixes.

I met Gailyn Addis when I was working as music director for “Hollywood Superstars” back around 1996-1999. This was a tribute performer show like “Legends” of Vegas with tribute performances of Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, Tina Turner, Buddy Holly, John Lennon, Frank Sinatra and the “Rat Pack” and others. We did a lot of corporate events and gigs in Las Vegas, Reno and a tour of Japan (where I performed in Hiroshima for the first time and got to experience the Hiroshima memorial museum). Gailyn Addis was the Marilyn Monroe impersonator in that group. While on tour we started talking about recording original music and after the Japan tour we started working on her songs, a couple of mine and then some collaborations for inclusion on her album. It was a very creative and enjoyable experience working with her.

I had a very close friend pass away around the time of writing “Search For Me” so my vantage point in this song was writing about my experience of being separated from them and hoping to be reunited one day. It was not a romantic relationship. It was someone who was extremely supportive of my artistic path in my early years. That relationship was very intertwined with my artistic path at the time and I thought of them often while I was creating new songs and music.

Hope you enjoy this song and the lyric video that was made for it.

LYRICS – Search For Me

This world
is lost without you
You’re gone
so far away
I will follow someday…

Search for me in every constellation
Search for me where ancient worlds collide
Please don’t leave me stranded here
without you by my side

Your soul flew
to the heavens
All I ask
when I pray
Will you still love me
in the same way…

Search for me in every constellation
Search for me where ancient worlds collide
Please don’t leave me stranded here
without you by my side

Here in this earth
Behind…

Search for me in every constellation
Search for me where ancient worlds collide
Please don’t leave me stranded here without you
Search for me in every constellation
Search for me where ancient worlds collide
Please don’t leave me stranded here
without you by my side

“Search for Me” © 1999 Gailyn Addis and Conrad Askland

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