Prior to forming The Midnight, Tyler Lyle and Tim McEwan were both established musicians. Lyle was an indie-folk singer-songwriter based in the state of Georgia and gained initial notability with several self-released titles, becoming regionally and nationally known. McEwan was a drummer and producer based in Denmark, later becoming a member of the Danish production group Deekay who has written and produced songs for many popular artists.
The pair met for the first time in 2012 at a songwriter’s workshop in North Hollywood organized by Katie Donovan, Lyle’s A&R representative at the time. Prior to meeting, McEwan had listened to some of Lyle’s previous work and liked Lyle’s folk sound. Despite differing musical backgrounds, they bonded over a mutual love of 80s rock and began to write songs together. After initially struggling to define their sound, McEwan suggested that they compose songs in the synthwave style. McEwan had prior exposure to the burgeoning genre and was inspired by the movie Drive. The first song they wrote together as a duo was WeMoveForward, which was included on their debut EP Days of Thunder.
STYLE AND WORKFLOW
For most of their career, The Midnight has created a strong and distinct synthwave sound in their music - Tim McEwan once described the band's early albums “as if Miami Vice had a baby with a John Hughes movie”. However, McEwan has continuously expressed a desire to evolve the synthwave genre and not be confined by it. Tyler Lyle has stated several times that the band's philosophy when composing is “combine, not confine”. Influences of genres such as lo-fi, soft rock, trance, and vaporwave can be heard on Monsters, and Lyle's musical background has brought influences of indie folk and Americana to the band's sound as well. Regarding the merging of their individual talents and styles, Lyle has said:
It’s rock and roll with synthesizers. Tim has a keen ear for production, and I can write songs that fit comfortably within the tradition of 20th century classic pop songwriting. Somewhere in the middle things get interesting.
McEwan employs various digital synths in his production, including Serum, Diva, TAL-U-NO-LX, Spire, and Roland Cloud's Jupiter 8 and Juno 106. In mid-2020, he mentioned that his favorite synth to use at the time was U-He's emulation of Prophet-5, known as Repro 5. McEwan has stated that he commonly begins with presets and then tweaks them to his liking. KONTAKT is used for sampling.
Both McEwan and Lyle use Logic Pro on macOS as their primary Digital Audio Workstation (DAW).Universal Audio interfaces are used to capture their sounds, which are then processed using UAD plugins. Using the same utilities makes it easier for them to share session files as a significant amount of their work is done remotely, due to living in different areas of the US. However, they will usually get together in the same room a few times during a release's production and will often write and record together while on tour. A release's sound and overall direction are generally created by the two bouncing ideas off each other - McEwan will send Lyle a rough track or beat, which Lyle will then think of lyrics and a title that would go good with the beat, after which McEwan will further build and produce the track. McEwan has stated that the production of a typical The Midnight album takes around three to six months, “from the early gestating part to finish”.
Production and drums are handled by McEwan, with Lyle providing guitar, lyrics, and vocals. Lyle has stated that he writes on a daily basis, and many lyrics come from a large number of fragments he keeps stored in Evernote. Most of the remaining instrumentation is digital, but on occasion songs (including most with saxophone and guitar solos) will at first have digital instruments that are then outsourced to other musicians to play live on the track. Thomas Edinger has been the primary saxophone player for The Midnight's releases, and McEwan's brother Oliver has frequently played bass for the band as well.
For live performances, various setups have been used by the band. Lyle stated that the Spring 2019 tour utilized an Ableton rig, with McEwan using an SPD SX sampling pad and MIDI controller. Lyle ran his guitars through a Kemper profiling amp, and he also used an OP1 for certain synth moments and pads.
Days of Thunder
The Midnight Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Is a smoking gun
Is a 4 letter word
I hope it hurts
Love is a fatal flaw
Is a broken jaw
Is a burning bridge
Move your hips
And the ghost of the boulevard
Littered with lonely hearts
The city like a graveyard
Once was a postcard
When you lose your wonder
And you can't remember
When we were…
Living in the days of thunder
Living in the days of…
Love was a dream to have
Was a kingsize bed
Was an escape plan
Was an open hand
Now it's a dog from hell
It's a dream you sell
It's an epitaph
It's photograph
And the ghost of the boulevard
Littered with lonely hearts
The city like a graveyard
Once was a postcard
When you lose your wonder
And you can't remember
When we were…
Living in the days of thunder
Living in the days of…
Living in the days of thunder
Living in the days of…
The Midnight's "Days of Thunder" is a song that speaks about the different facets of love and its impact on people. The opening lines, "Love is a setting sun, is a smoking gun, is a 4 letter word, I hope it hurts" suggest that love can be intense and messy. It is compared to a "setting sun", indicating that it can be beautiful but also fleeting. The line "I hope it hurts" shows the darker side of love, how it can lead to pain and heartbreak.
The next stanza continues to paint a picture of the destructive nature of love, describing it as a "fatal flaw" and "broken jaw." However, despite its damaging tendencies, love is also emphasized as something that can move you and make you alive. "Move your hips" shows how love is something that can make you dance, feel alive and find joy even in the midst of chaos.
The chorus, "Living in the days of thunder," can be understood as a metaphor for a time when everything was intense, passionate and alive. However, the following line "And the ghost of the boulevard, littered with lonely hearts..." suggests that this time has passed, that the intensity has faded and what remains is a sense of loss and longing.
Finally, the last stanza once again draws attention to the bittersweet nature of love. The line "It's an epitaph, it's photograph" highlights how memories of love and relationships can become something of the past, while still haunting us. The song ultimately suggests that while love can be intense and painful, it is something that will always have a hold on us.
Line by Line Meaning
Love is a setting sun
Love is like a sunset, where it slowly fades away.
Is a smoking gun
Love can be the cause of pain, heartbreak, and sometimes, destruction.
Is a 4 letter word
Love is often used as four-letter cuss word in moments of bitterness.
I hope it hurts
The singer wishes for the experience of love to leave a mark, even if it is painful.
Love is a fatal flaw
Love, while a lovely feeling, can be a fatal overlooked flaw in some situations.
Is a broken jaw
Love is a physical manifestation of an injury in the form of a broken jaw.
Is a burning bridge
Love can often lead to bridges being burned, and not every broken bridge can be mended.
Move your hips
The singer invites the listener to dance and enjoy life despite everything mentioned above.
And the ghost of the boulevard
The boulevard mentioned here is an imaginary street, but there's a past that haunts it.
Littered with lonely hearts
People tried to find love but only ended up with a broken heart.
The city like a graveyard
The city now looks like a grave where all hopes of ever finding love were buried.
Once was a postcard
There was a time when the city looked like a postcard, full of hope and life.
When you lose your wonder
When you stop finding joy in things that once used to make your heart flutter.
And you can't remember
When your memory can't go that far back, and everything seems like a distant past.
When we were living in the days of thunder
When love, passion, and living in the moment was everything, and thunder signifies the electrifying atmosphere.
Love was a dream to have
Love was the dream everyone wanted to fulfill.
Was a kingsize bed
Love was a place of comfort or escape, like a king-size bed.
Was an escape plan
Love was a way of escaping from the mundane
Was an open hand
Love was a welcoming hand offered to someone who needed it.
Now it's a dog from hell
Love has gone from being a dream to being a nightmare.
It's a dream you sell
Love is now something that can be bought or sold and is no longer heartfelt.
It's an epitaph
Love is now just remains, something that could have been, but never was.
It's photograph
Love is only captured in photographs, and everything is left to the memory.
Living in the days of thunder
These words are repeated as a reminder of the electrifying past where living in the moment was everything.
Living in the days of thunder
Repeated for reiteration.
Contributed by Tristan O. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
Matt DeWard
Love is a setting sun
Is a smoking gun
Is a 4 letter word
I hope it hurts
Love is a fatal flaw
Is a broken jaw
Is a burning bridge
Move your hips
And the ghost of the boulevard
Littered with lonely hearts
The city like a graveyard
Once was a postcard
When you lose your wonder
And you can’t remember
When we were…
Living in the days of thunder
Living in the days of thunder
Living in the days of thunder
Living in the days of thunder
Living in the days of…
Love was a dream to have
Was a kingsize bed
Was an escape plan
Was an open hand
Now it’s a dog from hell
It’s a dream you sell
It’s an epitaph
It’s a photograph
And the ghost of the boulevard
Littered with lonely hearts
The city like a graveyard
Once was a postcard
When you lose your wonder
And you can’t remember
When we were…
Living in the days of thunder
Living in the days of thunder
Living in the days of thunder
Living in the days of thunder
Living in the days of…
Living in the days of thunder
Living in the days of thunder
Living in the days of thunder
Living in the days of thunder
Living in the days of…
Kabel od żelazka
Love is a setting sun
Is a smoking gun
Is a 4 letter word
I hope it hurts
Love is a fatal flaw
Is a broken jaw
Is a burning bridge
Move your hips
[Chorus]
And the ghost of the boulevard
Littered with lonely hearts
The city like a graveyard
Once was a postcard
When you lose your wonder
And you can't remember
When we were living
In the days of thunder
Living in the days of thunder
Living in the days of thunder
Living in the days of thunder
Living in the days of…
[Verse 2]
Love was a dream to have
Was a king-size bed
Was an escape plan
Was an open hand
Now it's a dog from hell
It's a dream you sell
It's an epitaph
It's photograph
[Chorus]
And the ghost of the boulevard
Littered with lonely hearts
The city like a graveyard
Once was a postcard
When you lose your wonder
And you can't remember
When we were living
In the days of thunder
Living in the days of thunder
Living in the days of thunder
Living in the days of thunder
Living in the days of…
[Outro]
Living in the days of thunder
Living in the days of thunder
Living in the days of thunder
Living in the days of…
(days of thunder)
(days of thunder
BobbyHill Games
The midnight is just the 80's for us 90's kids who missed all the awesomeness.
robos
And 2000s kids who missed out, basically for everyone who missed out
Alex Tepozteco
We didn't miss all of it, nothing beats this guys music with a night cruise in an old 80's shitbox that still runs good
PhilxFlash
So true
Aspie Pie
Excuse me what... The very song your hear is part of the Internets music market... Do you realize that if you just
Pierce Arora
@robos Thats me...
Israel Garcia
This song catches perfectly the spirit of a time when people were in the habit of dreaming and imaginig a magical future far away from the one we finally got
daz636
yep
And now we've got pronoun police
Juro: LoriShulman karaoke2song
The future isn't over yet
Prophacyx
what we got is corona