Ferocious Designs, the mostly DIY music project of Central New Jersey-based songwriter Brian Kelley, wrote and recorded “Nobody’s Coming to Save the Day” June 6-7 for this year’s WXPN 24-Hour Song Challenge, based on the prompt of “freedom.”
WXPN, the non-commercial, member-supported radio station based out of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, launched the 24-hour song challenge in 2024, and Kelley has submitted a song for each of the three contests. This year’s challenge was dubbed the “Philly Anthems Edition” as it coincides with the station’s celebration of America’s birthplace as the nation turns 250.
“When this year’s song challenge was announced as the ‘Philly Anthems Edition,’ I kind of suspected something like ‘freedom’ would be the prompt,” said Kelley. “But I tried to put that out of my head because I didn’t want to get too attached to that theme just to be blindsided by a different prompt.”
But at noon EDT on Saturday, June 6, “freedom” was indeed the prompt announced on WXPN and songwriters within the station’s terrestrial broadcast range had until 11:59 a.m. EDT the following morning to submit a performance video of a song based on that prompt.
“I’ve been working on a new album that is leaning more toward prog and art rock, and I really wanted to go that direction with my entry,” said Kelley. “But the ‘Philly Anthems’ concept won out and I went with something more upbeat with a more anthemic chorus.
“And while I hadn’t gotten around to writing a song about it before that weekend, I had been thinking a lot about how even the politicians that say they are fighting back against the current fascist regime have come out against some of the very marginalized communities they are supposed to be fighting for,” added Kelley. “And I keep thinking that end of the day, we are on our own and no political party is really coming to save us from our current hellscape.”
And that’s how Kelley came up with “Nobody’s Coming to Save the Day.”
“It’s a pretty simple song and it came together relatively quickly, but I spent a lot of time on some guitar parts that I couldn’t quite get right since I’m not really a guitarist so I ditched them,” said Kelley. “But again the ‘Philly Anthems’ concept got me thinking of ways I could infuse some sounds of the city into the song so I found a free-to-use bell sound to evoke the Liberty Bell and played a little riff on a cheap melodica I bought late last year.
“And, of course, the melodica was made popular in pop music circles by Philly’s The Hooters in the 1980s,” added Kelley.
Kelley, who lives near Trenton, N.J., wanted to also include a nod to that city’s role in the American Revolution so he wore a “Trenton Makes the World Takes” shirt for the video.
“I definitely plan on including ‘Nobody’s Coming to Save the Day’ on my next album, but its final form may be a bit different than this one I cooked up in less than 24 hours,” said Kelley.
Ferocious Designs 