WonderKind is the new project from former Church Friends band member Grant Snell. He produced and played all the instruments for his new song "Hindsight's 2020". The song, like so many others, was born as a result of the year 2020. During the pandemic lockdown WonderKind became invested in programming 1980’s synthesizers, and pairing those sounds with a 1980’s drum machine. Because what else was there to do? Hindsight's 2020 started out as WonderKind just having fun creating synth chord progressions over a drum machine loops. He ended up liking what he made so much that he decided to form it into a song. The chords reminded him of some of the arrangements he was used to playing as part of the Louisville Male High School marching band in the early 2010's.
When it came time to began writing lyrics WonderKind wanted it to have a Prince feel with catchy falsetto vocals. The vocal melodies could be heard but lyrics didn't come so easily. The world, and the Unites States were going through a lot at the time – this was around November 2020. It had been an anomaly of a year, with the pandemic, the Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and Ahmaud Arbery tragedies it seemed like every week there was something else happening. WonderKind started to feel detached from reality.
"I felt like life had flipped upside down and the world was melting into chaos. The phrase ‘Hindsight’s 20/20’ had been stuck in my head because it seemed so ironic – it was the year 2020 and I don’t think anyone could have predicted what had happened that year. That phrase will never be the same to me", reflects WonderKind. He wrote the song about his own personal experiences during 2020 and how it felt like a roller coaster ride (Listener's should note that he ended up using a rocket metaphor instead of roller coaster, "It just flowed better lyrically and with the music. To me the flanging synths just sounded kind of like a jet/rocket flying over head.").
As with many things, 2020 wasn’t all bad for WonderKind. "I tried to throw in some positivity in the bridge with the lyrics 'and I got nowhere to be so I’ll sit and reflect on who is me'. This was very true for me. I spent a lot of time reflecting on myself and my character during the lockdown and made a lot of positive changes to my life. I am not the same person I was before the pandemic."
https://open.spotify.com/track/6P9SxZUnZiBGCO4qUwJTTS?si=dec46ec85109451f
