Invincible
“Invincible”, the second single from Roe’s Garden, is out today. Woohoo!
That probably reads sarcastically, but genuinely, I am excited about this song and I hope you find three and half minutes to listen, and if you enjoy the song then please like it, share it with a friend, do anything to pass it on. It helps us immensely and I also believe it’ll help spread some positive energy around your circle, because as most all these Roe’s Garden singles, this song is a labor of love. A little bit of context:
I bought myself a new guitar in November of 2020 - I am in a ongoing struggle with the instrument in general as part of me desperately wants to be a master of guitar but I just don’t practice regularly enough - and in the first week or two after I bought it I wrote three or four songs on it. Invincible was one of them. It sat on my phone a voice memo for about two years. There were two reasons for this. One, the lyrics felt very personal, almost like a prayer or an offering to a higher power than a love song about two people, and two, when I tried to sit down and record an arrangement I messed up the groove so badly that I kind of immediately hated the song. So I put it away and kept on trucking, looking for new ideas that felt better to me.
Then in early 2022, when Understanding and I went back to work on season 2 of Wu-Tang: An American Saga, RZA presented us the opportunity to write original songs to pitch to the show. With this in mind, we tried to write an original song for just about every scene of each episode. My philosophy was “the more shots we put up, the better the odds are that we make a few.” There’s a scene in season 3, episode 1 where Bobby finds Mecca in the bedroom doing laundry and cleaning up. She’s feeling neglected because Bobby has thrown himself so deeply into his work that he rarely ever steps away, even sleeping in the studio most nights. That exchange reminded me of the chorus of Invincible - “I get cold, when you leave me lonely”.
We scrapped the original demo I had of the song and took a new approach. What if Mecca was listening to that song while she was cleaning? It would have to sound like 90s R&B. Luckily, that’s Understanding’s wheelhouse. He flipped the drums and I kept it simple on the guitar and bass. Then we added the secret ingredient: Erica’s voice. Similarly to Where Do You Go, as soon as she was on the vocal the song made sense. We pitched it to the show and it got in, so if you find yourself on Hulu wanting to know the history of one of the greatest rap groups of all time, listen close in the first episode of the third season. Right around 16 minutes in, you’ll hear Invincible.
One more thing about the lyrics. As I mentioned before, it wasn’t about a person to person relationship when I wrote it. Changing the vibe and adding Erica gives it a new feel, and it makes sense as a love song, but originally I was trying to express a deeper love. The idea was if you put your faith into something bigger than yourself, you can exceed your own limitations. Your flame burns brighter when you submit to your passion.
Anyway, this is the second of twelve singles Roe’s Garden will release this year. Hope you enjoy. If we believe, we can all be Invincible.
-J.P.