I took a different approach to recording this song; I basically already had the first 40 seconds of the melody in my head, but no words/etc to put it to.

When I started recording the song, I sang ad-libbed lyrics and played accompaniment on the piano at the same time (usually I do this separately). Then, I recorded the melody with the saw wave and trashed my vocal track. The drums, bass, strings, horns, etc followed.