Seawall’s Jon Kayden received an honorable mention for his song “I Am Loved” during the San Diego Songwriter’s Guild 23nd Annual Song Contest.

The contest was held November 3, 2014 at the La Jolla Brewing Company with around 70 entries of which created a deep pool of talent. Prize winners were selected by a panel of industry professionals.

Top four place winners can be listened to here.

You can check out I am Loved here:  listen soundcloud

I am Loved has a little bit of a different sound than Seawall’s usual feel.  Kayden admits it has a lot more Beatles and Jack Johnson in it than originally intended, but he had fun with it and decided to just let it be.

A fun fact about this song is that two days before the scheduled studio time to record it he awoke from a dream with a very different version of the song.  In the dream there was a crisp horn section and the chorus was more upbeat with a 3/4 rhythm instead of keeping to 4/4.  Kayden immediately knew it was a better composition.  He did research and hired a professional brass ensemble, sat at a piano and hammered out the notes he heard on music paper for the horns, came up with a new guitar part and had to write a whole new chorus.  Driving to the studio to record he was still hashing out the lyrics.

Another profound transformation in the song occurred when the phrase “I am Loved” spontaneously came out at the end.  The producer, Patricio Pickslay, suggested changing the title from “Forsaken” to “I am Loved” thus capturing the journey and essence of the song.