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.
Light Years
The Midnight Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
I didn't fall in love with you
There was a song I was singing
It wasn't meant for you
I'm sorry
That I can't stay
And I'm sorry
I bite your lip
And you taste like summer time
I can't forget
The days when you were mine
Do you wander the streets every night
Just to find me too?
Light years
Echos
In the streetlights
In between those
Spaces in the moment
Come and find me
Where we let go
Come and find me
Where we let go
I fell in love with the feeling
And your funny faces
You were beautiful and broken
In all the right places
I'm sorry
That I can't stay
And I'm sorry
We're light years away
Millions behind or light years ahead
Our time is now, our time was then
And I hear your voice inside of my head but
It's just a silhouette
Do you wonder what happened
To all of the love we lose?
Light years
Echos
In the streetlights
In between those
Spaces in the moment
Come and find me
Where we let go
Come and find me
Where we let go
Come and find me
Where we let go
Light years
Do you want your tears back?
Light years
They're gone
I'm sorry
Light years
Echos
In the streetlights
In between those
Spaces in the moment
Come and find me
Where we let go
Light years
Echos
In the streetlights
In between those
Spaces in the moment
Come and find me
Where we let go
Light years
Come and find me where we let go
Do you need your tears back?
Come and find me where we let go
Light years
Come and find me where we let go
They're gone, I'm sorry
Come and find me where we let go
The Midnight's song "Light Years" is a melancholic and wistful reflection on a past love. The first verse speaks of falling in love with a certain feeling, rather than with the person themselves, and the realization that a certain song that was sung was not meant for the person they were with at the time. The chorus is apologetic, with the lyrics "I'm sorry, that I can't stay, and I'm sorry, we're light years away." This suggests that while there may still be feelings for the past love, circumstances have separated them greatly, and there is no hope of rekindling something that was once there.
The second verse describes more specific memories of the past love, from the taste of their lip to their beauty in brokenness. The bridge of the song poses a series of questions to the past lover, wondering if they are also grasping at straws to try and find one another again, if they know of the love that has been lost, and if they hear echoes of each other in the present. The song ends with a final plea to "come and find me where we let go," a heartbreaking desire to recapture something that time and distance cannot allow.
Line by Line Meaning
I fell in love with the feeling
I was enamored with the experience, not necessarily with you
I didn't fall in love with you
Although I enjoyed being with you, it wasn't necessarily because I had romantic feelings for you
There was a song I was singing
I was expressing my emotions through music
It wasn't meant for you
Although you were there, the song wasn't specifically referring to our relationship
I'm sorry
I regret that things didn't work out
That I can't stay
I wish I could remain in your life, but circumstances prevent it
We're light years away
Our relationship and emotions are so far apart that they seem like they're from different worlds
I bite your lip
I have intimate physical moments with you
And you taste like summertime
Your kiss and energy remind me of warm, carefree days
I can't forget
I can't stop thinking about our past experiences together
The days when you were mine
I miss the time we spent with each other as romantic partners
Do you wander the streets every night
I wonder if you're out searching for me, unable to forget our time together
Just to find me too?
Are you also looking for me, hoping to reunite?
Light years
Our emotional distance is so vast that it feels like we're separated by light years
Echos
Our past experiences and emotions reverberate and continue to affect us
In the streetlights
The urban landscape surrounding us reminds me of our past together
In between those
In the moments in between the hustle and bustle of life, I remember our relationship
Spaces in the moment
The fleeting moments of life are when I feel the most nostalgia for us
Come and find me
I want you to reconnect with me
Where we let go
The place where we relinquished our love, but now want it back
And your funny faces
I miss the unique and charming expressions you would make
You were beautiful and broken
Although you had flaws, I found them endearing and a part of your beauty
In all the right places
Your imperfections were perfect in their own way
Millions behind or light years ahead
We're either far behind or far ahead of our past relationship
Our time is now, our time was then
Our relationship is always present in our minds, both in the present and the past
And I hear your voice inside of my head but
I still remember your voice, but it's just a memory now
It's just a silhouette
Our past relationship is now a shadow of what it used to be
Do you wonder what happened
Do you also feel like something went wrong between us unexpectedly?
To all of the love we lose?
Do you also think about how our love ended?
Come and find me where we let go
I want to reunite and try again where our love faltered
Do you need your tears back?
Are you also crying over what we lost, and do you want to get over it?
They're gone, I'm sorry
Our tears and our love are a thing of the past, and I'm sorry for it
Writer(s): Jamison Tyler Lyle, Nikki Flores, Tim Mcewan
Contributed by Benjamin W. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
@kemachi
LYRICS
I fell in love with the feeling
I didn't fall in love with you
There was a song I was singing
It wasn't meant for you
I'm sorry
That I can't stay
And I'm sorry
We're light years away
I bite your lip
And you taste like summer time
I can't forget
The days when you were mine
Do you wander the streets every night
Just to find me too?
Lightyears
Echos
In the streetlights
In between those
Spaces in the moment
Come and find me
Where we let go
Come and find me
Where we let go
I fell in love with a feeling
And your funny faces
You were beautiful and broken
In all the right places
I'm sorry
That I can't stay
And I'm sorry
We're light years away
Millions behind or lightyears ahead
Our time is now - our time was then
And I hear your voice inside of my head but It's just a silhouette
Do you wonder what happened
To all of the love we lose?
Lightyears
Echos
In the streetlights
In between those
Spaces in the moment
Come and find me
Where we let go
Come and find me
Where we let go
Come and find me
Where we let go
Lightyears
Do you want your tears back?
Lightyears
They're gone
I'm sorry
@blarghinatelazer9394
@@debojyotisarkar72 Some of their best, in my opinion, would have to be:
Light Years (This one)
Crystalline
Shadows
Days of Thunder
WeMoveForward
The Years
Synthetic
River of Darkness
Endless Summer
Sunset
Jason
Vampires
The Comeback Kid
Comet
Bend
and that's just a handful of them. Really, I think all of their songs are worth a listen, at least from those albums.
@TommyPhani
The last time I had breakup was in 2018 due to youth, difference, selfishness, ... and many many things.
I happened to find out The Midnight in mid-2019 and they became my favourite - especially Los Angeles, Sunset, Kids, Brooklyn... and LIGHTYEARS.
Back then, I sometimes thought that our breakup happened because of that distance - which can be measured by Lightyears - it just means "tooo faraway".
4 years later, I met the one that I can feel like I can fall in love with once again. That came true. Now we're going to celebrating our 1st anniversary.
Although I don't usually listen to Lightyears lately, this is still the best song from The Midnight. With Lightyears, I look back to those days and feel grateful that I was patient and brave enough to live through.
I hope that everything should be ok - just be okay and we will take the rest 🥰🥰
@dafferline3928
I lost my son 2021January and this his favorite music. I listen to them as often as i can because it makes me closer to him. At his funeral we plyed The last Train and Memories. Whenever i play them i just cry. I just love the music by the midnight.
@maka8572
I'm really sorry to hear this and sorry for your undescribable loss
@zn.mercury3089
I lost my mother April 28th of 2021. I've listened to this particular song a number of times and wept for her. I cried again reading your comment just now. I'm so sorry for your loss. May your son continue to rest in peace 🙏 💗
@informativecontent4778
Lost my father in 2020, burning pain in my heart but such music is helpful
@Etherian87
what was he like?
@arifulislam864
😭 u make me emonotional
@zachcastaneda
Why am I tearing up? This song really hits and the lyrics is beyond phenomenal
@peteandurnot
The harmonies in the music do that too. Lovely stuff.
@ICON-11-
It's a really beautiful song, Godbless you and your loved ones Zach❤👊😎
@Otterpoptheotter
Nikki’s voice really just completes this song honestly