Song Deconstructed: ‘Metamorphosis’ by Infinity Song

Infinity Song’s Abraham Boyd: “The song started with me crying in bed…”

From a collective period of doubt emerged a triumphant anthem that united the sibling band and became their defining moment

Infinity Song, siblings Abraham, Angel, Israel, and Momo Boyd, make sultry soft rock imbued with the richness of bands like Buffalo Springfield and Fleetwood Mac. When you throw their blood harmonies into the mix, you’re left with a soulful sound that warms the ears. Earlier this year the New York-based band released the album Metamorphosis Complete. Out on Roc Nation, it’s an expanded version of the previous year’s Metamorphosis mini-album that includes five additional songs, rounding out a chapter that has seen the band grown in both popularity and confidence. With the title track of the record standing as its thematic bedrock, we asked Abraham, Angel and Momo to break it down for us…

First published in Songwriting Magazine Winter 2024

INSPIRATION

Abraham: The song Metamorphosis is reflective, it’s the process of going from a cocoon to a butterfly. Part A is melancholic, exasperated, and there’s more than a hint of depression. It really reflected our feelings as a band at the time it was written; the feeling like we didn’t have anything together and there was a wind in our faces rather than at our backs. An exhaustion, but also the desire to accomplish something new and see something new for ourselves.

Angel: The song started with me crying in bed. It wasn’t even a song concept, but I had this awakening of, ‘I don’t like myself and I’m tired of being stuck in this personality.’ It was definitely the start of this transformational journey for me.

Momo: I think it truly represented where we were as a group; feeling like we weren’t even close to where we wanted to be, to where we dreamt of, and feeling like there’s so much in between to get to the stage we dreamt of. We were looking into the future and saying, ‘One day, we’re gonna feel these feelings of… now you’re on a rocket ship, you’re standing there on that stage, all because you had the faith.’

LYRICS

Angel: I brought the line, ‘Sometimes I don’t like myself,’ into the writing process when I initiated this collaborative process. At first, it was me in the studio with the pianist and a writer, and then I invited everyone, and I was like, ‘Guys, we need to write this song together.’ Momo was next to come in. She had a huge section of another song that she’d already been writing that was definitely in the similar vein, her own existential crisis happening. That was basically the first half of this song, that melody and stream of thought and how they worked together. It was then probably the same time when Abraham, Israel and our sister, Victory, wrote on it as well.

Momo: I had a direction that I was going in, because I was writing this as a personal confession and admission of how I’d been feeling about myself, and where I was emotionally. I just didn’t feel good about anything… When Angel was saying she had the idea for a song where you go from not liking yourself to growing into who you were always born to be, I was like, ‘Well, I actually have been working on a song that deals very closely with the different aspects of not liking yourself and not being comfortable in your own skin.’

Abraham: It’s the first song that we wrote together as a band. Usually, we write songs as individuals and then bring them to the table, and everyone contributes after a song is written and produced by an individual. This one was a collective effort, and so many contributions from around the room.

Infinity Song’s Momo Boyd: “We wanted to be a unified vocal group that had a unified message.”

MUSIC

Momo: I had the chord progression for the first half of the song, before it goes into the change, more of the dark, doubtful side of the song. I had the chord progression that I had worked on and I was really excited about. And then I also had the first verse and pre-chorus, the melody as well as the lyrics. The change chord progression from the dark to the bright, it started with the idea that Angel had of wanting an abrupt shift from a self-deprecating mindset to an, ‘I can do this,’ mindset. We didn’t stumble into that, it was an intention, like, ‘Okay, we want to go from the dark to this lighter, more triumphant feeling.’ Israel is the one who did the guitar solo, he spearheaded that.

IN THE STUDIO

Abraham: There are two different soundscapes on the song, one that reflects something that you’d hear from The Cranberries or Smashing Pumpkins, a more melancholic side – not just lyrically, but sonically. And then there’s the part that reflects America, The Bee Gees, or Fleetwood Mac. Sonically, it really does transition from dark to light. Even Nirvana was an inspiration on the early part. We opened the song in total unison. We layered our voices and recorded all the foundational vocals at the same time. We were all in separate booths, and we did five or six passes of that unison. The vocals on this song were done extremely efficiently. I don’t think we’ve ever done a song faster, in terms of vocal layering. The production of this song was about two days in the studio.

Momo: Abraham talked about the intentional unison that we were all excited to do, and I remember what that actually meant to us at the time, singing these very important lyrics as a group, as one. Even though it felt like, ‘Okay, we’re at rock bottom, and we’re singing songs about feeling like we’re at rock bottom, we’re here together, we’re proclaiming it together, and we are going through it together.’ It was the first song that we sang like that together… we knew we wanted to change the way that we did things, and we wanted to be a unified vocal group that had a unified message.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Angel: The song actually had a different title at first. It was nice but didn’t necessarily feel like the best title. Our dad was like, ‘Maybe you should consider changing the title.’ Then Israel said, ‘It should be called Metamorphosis,’ and that summarised it perfectly. The song would have still been the exact same song, but there’s something about a title that you can get behind, and that can also become your album title, and a theme of your life.

Abraham: It was the first song written for our album, Metamorphosis Complete, and it was the foundation of the season that we’re currently existing in. At some point, the Metamorphosis season is coming to a close, and we’ll move on to a new space with a new voice and new inspirations. But this has been one for the books.

Music and tour dates can be found at infinitysongmusic.com

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