Gatlin
How I Wrote “Whenever He Asks”
The beginnings of this song started in January of 2020. I sat down with my guitar on my bedroom floor like I’ve done so many times and wrote completely out of emotion about what was going on in my life then and there. It spilled out in about twenty minutes and then it sat in a voice note for several months. Then in June of 2020, I was writing with my producer Nick Lobel. We had started building tracks together and finding cool, weird sounds that inspired us. I remember sitting at The Cave in Nashville with Nick the whole day and then at the very end of the day he started playing the synth progression that is the cornerstone of the whole song. The sounds reminded me a lot of the feelings I had when I wrote the folky/acoustic song back in January. It was pretty natural after that - using chunks of the other song with new melodies and the song really just kind of took over from there.
I was feeling extremely lonely and at a very low point in my life. I look back on it now and don’t recognize the girl I was writing about - it was definitely at a time where I was begging someone to love me who just didn’t. It was a very humbling song to write - because in conversations with friends and myself I was definitely putting on the “I’m a badass bitch, who knows who she is and doesn’t need a man to tell me that” persona. But when I sat down and really thought about how I felt - I just wanted to be wanted.
We took the demo - which we worked on from July till November on and off - and brought it into the studio to my band. Jack Filipovic played bass, Aaron Steele played some of the coolest drums parts I’ve ever heard, Alex Wright played keys, and Tyler Tomlinson and Nick Lobel played guitar. Then, Nick worked on the track back at his house and we would just send stuff back and forth. I was in LA at the time so I would send him more vocals and such from LA and then we’d hop on zoom and go through mixing notes. It feels as if this song has seen the most lives out of anything I’ve created. It has sounded so different at different points in the last year and a half. Pretty crazy!
It’s a very heavy song so I think I just want people to feel something and if they can apply it to their own lives to get comfort, then that’s always awesome too. I also want people to know they're not alone if they’re going through heartbreak. I don’t want to romanticize having someone treat you like shit, but acknowledge those feelings… get them out… and move forward. This song was a big help in the process of getting over something I thought was love.