"300 Years" - a song about the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II

I have always been fascinated by Russian history, particularly in 20th century with the revolution, the wars, Stalin’s purges and the fall of communism. But a part of this history that has gripped me so much of late and got my creative mind working is the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II and the ending of the Romanov dynasty.

There are so many enthralling and epic stories that have risen from the ashes of the Romanovs - the manipulative adviser Rasputin and the lost princess Anastasia, to name only two. But to me the most powerful story takes place on the 15th of March, 1917 - Nicholas is alone in a carriage on a train bound for St Petersburg, and having finally been confronted with the reality of the situation that his country is in, he accepts that he must abdicate the throne, ending three centuries of Romanov rule.

At it’s root, I believe this is the story of a man who never grew up, whose innocence was never broken, whose delusions were never challenged. Many of us as children think we are the centre of the universe, but we soon grow out of it as we are exposed to the world around us. Nicholas on the other hand was raised to believe with all of his heart that he was the latest in the long line of Romanovs literally chosen by God to rule over an entire nation and its’ people. Insulated from the real world, the political movements gathering momentum, and the real suffering and anger of his subjects, he thought that the Russian people loved him and looked to him as a father. 

Imagine the sense of grief and betrayal he must have felt when they turned on him, and the shame of being the weak link in the chain of a ruling royal family.  I wanted to try to capture this feeling in a song, but before I laid my hands on the piano I just starting writing in my notepad. I imagined the beautiful setting of the Russian countryside covered in a blanket of snow, and the Tsar, cigarette in hand, gazing out over this awe inspiring land, knowing that soon it would all be lost.

This picture is a good representation of my usual working method when writing lyrics. On the right is my initial vomit to the page of ideas, and the left is the refinement of these ideas into a useable lyric - picking out nice words or phrases and fleshing them out or distilling them down. 

This song is far from finished (all I have is two verses and a chorus) and I have no idea where it is going. Maybe this will just be a stand alone song, or perhaps it will expand into a much larger project, but for now I just wanted to share a little with you of the kind of thing that makes me tick creatively and sparks an idea, and my process into starting to bring that idea to life.

Jay