Songs from the Dumpster

Title: Day to Night
Genre: Eighties Rock
Time: 5:15
Key: Cm
Influences: Rush, Styx

So much for a flying start at week 22…I still didn’t get to work on this one as early as I wanted. Oh well…Monday is apparently the new Saturday!

This one pieced together just about as quickly as last week’s. I started out with the main guitar riff, and the rest of the song built around it. The lyrics and melody took a bit of doing. I’ve found that the songs that I’ve liked most are mostly where I’ve had a few days to hash out lyrics and melody. Well, the past two songs have been one day wonders, so I’m not as happy as I could be. Still, it’s been great practice in moving forward, and not getting bogged down when stuff isn’t clicking. Maybe a bit thick on the effects of the vocals, but that’s mainly because I’m trying to find a new vocal style. I’m not a great vocalist, but neither are a lot of my favorite recording artists (Lou Reed, Ric Ocasek among others). Unique, yet doesn’t make your ears bleed is an elusive combination.

The title for this one just popped into my head…..for some reason, it felt right. Lyrically, this song started out as another “creeping horde” song (damned if I know why my songs seem to accidentally be about zombies lately). Wasn’t happy with that direction, and thought about how colors bleed away ad dusk. Coupling that with the ideas of “black and white” and shades of gray, and the demons became metaphorical, with the song being about uncertainty. Not my finest work, but I’m still pretty pleased with how it came together.

Oh, the last thing that was intersting about recording this was it was my first time trying out using the closet as a recording booth (both to isolate vocals better, and spare the household my singing). Two long cables for headphones and microphone plus a wireless keyboard, and it all works fairly well. The only annoying part was having to go out every time I wanted to reset the recording head placement. Now, if I had another monitor in the closet….oh, I must work on that.

Title: Not Our Reality
Genre: Space Goth
Time: 5:59
Key: Em
Influences: Evanescence, NIN, Type O Negative

Week 21: In which the songwriter phones it in.

Yeah, I’m not nearly as heavy as the references I listed.

Musically, I’m pretty pleased with how this one came together, considering I threw together the first riff that came to me. Pretty basic gothy stuff, nothing too special about it. It feels like a B-side to And Still They Come (or maybe a retread). That, and I should probably lay off using the Choir keyboard patch for a while.

Lyrically, it’s vagueness that led into a “wake up” sort of theme. I like the first verse, not so sure about the rest of the song. Beyond that, even, I just haven’t been in the mood to sing lately. Of course, it doesn’t help that the child is sleeping on the couch right behind me, and it’s bloody hot, so AC is on, as well as fans on all over the house. Bleh. At any rate, it’s done.

I should really figure out a better way to approach lyrics when I’m in this kind of mood, because it makes the entire song pretty marginal when the vocals are so lackluster. Oh well. I guess I should be pleased that I threw a song together of this style in a day or so, rather than just packing it in. Whenever I’ve needed a quick song before, I’ve fallen back on folk, so I suppose this is an improvement over my usual fare in that regard.

At least I have the rest of the week to take a flying leap at Week 22.

I was wondering when this was going to happen…a perfect storm of stuff going on and computer problems. Week 21 is 90% done, I just need to get a melody and lyrics. Rather than force something out tonight, I figure I’ll do my usual car method tomorrow, record and post tomorrow night, then launch right into week 22. Running late, but not horribly so.

Title: Paint the Rooster Blue
Genre: Folk
Time: 3:48
Key: C
Influences: Dennis Day, Big Rock Candy Mountain

This one requires a bit of explanation…

Every once in a while, you hear a phrase and just think, “Song title!” Such was the case on Wednesday, when Shanah and I were discussing plans for the weekend - one of which was finally treating our rooster for his poor defeathered butt. There’s a protective coating called Blue-Kote which promotes healing, and discourages pecking. Yes, it’s blue. We’ve had it for a little bit, and haven’t gotten around to painting the rooster yet. It wasn’t until this week that saying “Paint the Rooster Blue!” struck me as a kind of expression, a euphemism for “Let’s get it fixed!” I always know when I’m on the right path for a song, because verses come spilling out. This was no exception, and I wrote verse one and two in short order. The other verses came about over the course of the day.

Musically, I make no claim to originality for this melody. It’s largely based off of a 1947 song called “Clancy Lowered the Boom“, a wonderfully un-PC song about a certain Irishman’s penchant for brawling. Of course Johnny Cash also used that song as a basis for one of his songs, so I guess I’m in good company. Side comment: Clancy Lowered the Boom is pointed to as promoting the stereotype of the Irish being rowdy brawlers. However, I was remembering back to when I first heard it on a 78 at my grandpa’s house. I didn’t think, “Man, the Irish fight a lot!” My thought was, “Man, Clancy fights a lot!” I suppose that it’s through enough varied repetition that a stereotype gains hold. Anyway, I still have that 78…good stuff.

I approached recording differently this week, and differently that I recorded The Magic Fish. For that one, I recorded one verse, and used loops to create the rest of the verses. For this one, I played the entire song on each instrument, without the use of a click track. I went back and added in the mandolin melody as a separate pass, but the other six or so tracks are single takes, with no correction for wrong notes or whatnot. I had also already started recording when I realized that I hadn’t stopped to tuned the guitar. Oh well…so I tuned up the instruments to sound about right, and went with it. I believe the expression is “close enough for folk music.”

Hannah was watching TV in the background as I laid down the mandolin. It’s quite possible that you can make out Babar the Elephant in the background.

Shanah also mentioned that there’s a similarity to Big Rock Candy Mountain: also true. Folk music is folk music, and builds off itself, so there’s lots of common themes.

This song was also the first time I got to use my tenor banjo on a song, after I got it restrung with heavy enough strings for celtic tuning. It’s essentially a mandolin, one octave lower…and I was very pleased with how well it blended with a mandolin. Gotta do more of that later on! For the future: I’d love to add a fiddle to this tune. Also: the rooster on the recording is not our rooster (who indeed is named Grizzly)…but that’s pretty much exactly what he sounds like.

Title: Wishbone
Genre: Classic Rock
Time: 4:06
Key: A
Influences: Lynyrd Skynryd, Allman Brothers

Week 19: In which the Songwriter runs late.

Blargh. I’ll be quite pleased if I ever get rid of this whole Plague thing I have going on. Actually, the music came together quite quickly this week, once again. I went in aiming to use the trick of having the guitar and bass (and ultimately keyboards) playing one unison riff. It’s a pretty cool sounding schtick, and I’m pretty pleased with how it worked. The verses are actually pretty similar melodically…the same melody from the verse could hav also been used for the chorus. I was thinking about doing a Sweet Home Alabama and doing just that, but couldn’t think of any lyrics to make it work.

It could be argued that as it is, I didn’t come up with any lyrics to make it work. I shoulda called this one Scrambled Eggs and been done with it, because the lyrics are nothing but placeholder. I don’t mind the vague verses, but the chorus does absolutely nothing for me, aside from having the right kind of feel, sort of. Couple that with still not having control of my voice after being sick….meh. I like most of the parts (except for that chorus), but somehow the whole definitely became less than the some of its parts. Oh well, on to week 20 (which I’m already in, dammit).

Title: And Still They Come
Genre: Space Goth!
Time: 5:20
Key: E minor
Influences: System of a Down, The Garlic Mustard Pickers, Type O Negative, Plants vs. Zombies (see the edit at the end.)

Week 18: In which the Songwriter hacks up a lung.

This song came together pretty quickly, although a problem was that I finally caught Shanah’s cold midway through the week. So, parts of it aren’t as polished as I’d like. The vocal style stemmed from that as well…figured that I should figure on a sedate vocal, since I’m still hacking up a lung.

I’ve been getting around a mental mindblock the past few weeks, and “allowing” myself to write songs that use the same chord progression for both the verse and chorus. For some reasons, I’ve always been in the mindset that verse and chorus have to be different. Which is, of course, silly. Musical differentiation keeps the whole song from feeling repetitious, but there are other ways to break up the song…changing up the melody, adding different melodic accents…or the use of recurring melodic themes. And even then, you don’t have to do that. I always remind myself of Sweet Home Alabama, which is essentially the same for both verse and chorus. Doesn’t keep it from being a great song at all.

As far as the lyrics…I had March of the Faeries running through my head this week (celtic traditional), so I had the idea of making this a Faerie song, somehow, and going with its sort of creepy feel. Going with that idea found the “And Still They Come” line, but nothing else was working, at 10:30 on Sunday night. So, I went with that line as the chorus, and wrote my two most Vague Rock verses yet. Yes, these words mean absolutely nothing…or whatever you want them to mean. At any rate, the words were written in ten minutes, tops. I spent the next hour recording and mixing. The funny thing is, as non-intentional as the whole process was, I like the end result. Funny how that works.

EDIT: As per usual, Shanah has given me some insight as to what this song is about: zombies! (!!!) What’s even funnier is that this makes perfect sense: Hannah and I have been playing quite a bit of Plants vs Zombies, which is an absolutely wonderful game. Makes sense that I would accidentally write a song about a creeping horde, even accidentally.

Title: Flying High
Genre: 80s Indie Pop Rock (I guess)
Time: 2:46
Key: G
Influences: The Cars

Week 17: In which the Songwriter breaks a promise.

Ok, well, when I started out this project, one of the things I said I would never do would be to use Autotune. Well, er, I used that this week. Part of the reason was that I sort of painted myself into a corner with the song I did. The melody I came up with, along with the key of the song (note to self: G is a bad key for me), pretty much put it out of my range. That, and by the time I was able to sit down to record vocals for the week, I was freakin’ exhausted. So, that led me to trying some new effects, since my vocals sounded pretty listless…which led me to autotune.

So, I learned a few things about autotune tonight…it’s something that you have to play like an instrument all by itself. I found that I have a tendancy to drop off the note at the end of phrases. This is just a slightly annoying habt with regular recording…but becomes glaringly obvious with note correction. So, I had to make a pointed effort to hold my notes steady. I more or less succeeded.

The other part about pitch correction is more a limitation of what I have to work with, and Garageband. I change key in the bridge, and autotune sounds at its blippy best when it’s constrained to the key you’re working in. Since Garageband doesn’t let you change key during a song, I would have had to turn off “limit to key” in order to let autotune actually get to the notes I wanted to sing in the bridge. And Autotune in Garageband tends to be a watery mess if you don’t limit it to the key you’re working in. Which leads me to the bridge, and the jarring change of effects. And man, I just couldn’t find a melody there….or lyrics that I liked. I’m not gonna say that I hate it, but it can go and die in a fire.*

Other than the bridge, I don’t mind the lyrics. I got the imagery based off of Hannah’s birthday party, and the kite festival we went to. No, “Flying High” isn’t drugs, it’s kites. Any additional metaphors are optional. And I guess the irony is that I wrote a song about a kite crashing…and ended up having major problems with my own kite and a tree this afternoon. “Flying High” indeed.

Musically, I’ve always wondered when I was going to start writing like/thinking about the Cars when I was writing. And I guess the answer is now. The funny thing it, I had a song stuck in my head this entire week, and right now, damned if I can’t remember which one it was. (EDIT: Just remembered, it was It’s All I Can Do.) It was one of the Benjamin Orr vocals Cars songs….anyway, no matter, at least I didn’t end up accidentally copying that melody.

*EDIT: Oh look, the bridge went and jumped off one. I went and rendered a new version sans bridge, and I don’t think it loses anything. If you want to hear the original, it’s here.

Title: The Place That I Call Home
Genre: Country-ish
Time: 5:18
Key: D
Influences: Collective Soul, the Pixies, Duncan Shiek

Week 16: In which the Songwriter dusts off an old friend.

It’s been since forever that I’ve written a song that was primarily acoustic guitar (The Magic Fish doesn’t really count). It seems I started this whole project by writing a song that was all electric, shocked myself that I could actually do it and get it done, and…just kept on going. I fixed one of my previous objections to using my acoustic this week, and made a preset for recording that gave me a sound I was happy with.

Took me a bit of doing to get this one started. I went to a site or two to look up some new chord progressions, as I seemed to be in somewhat of a rut, chordally (is that a word?). I worked out the verse progression based off an idea from one of those sites. As far as the chorus, I finally broke down and used the old standby, I-V-vi-IV. I don’t think I’ve ever used it in a song, primarily because it’s been used a lot. But man, there’s a reason why everyone uses it..it dresses up nice!

I got the music together by Thursday, and figured out the song title the next day. That’s usually all it takes to get a song written. But this one fought me, even after I knew what the song was about. Maybe I need to read some more or something…more music seemed to do it when I was stuck musically, after all. What finally broke down my logjam was using Oblique Strategies (I have an OSX widget of them). The one I got said, “Use a model”. So, I started writing lyrics like I was writing a Collective Soul song…vague rock all the way! That was enough to get me the viewpoint that I wanted for the song. Lyrics written by 9:00, recorded by 10:30, post written and mixed properly by 11.

That being said, I’m not really happy with how this one turned out, mainly because I think it really points out my limitations as a singer…both in the tone and pitch of the main melody (it sounded better in my head, and geez, could I hit a good note tonight or not? I lean towards “not”.), and in not getting a real harmony completed. That, and I just ran out of time for this one. I’ll be revisiting this one, and giving it the proper “big” sound it needs. Shanah also offered to sing this one as a duet, so she could cover the high harmony parts that I’m incapable of doing.

Title: The Answer
Genre: Indie Rock
Time: 3:17
Key: Db
Influences: The Cars, Skinny Puppy, Art Brut

It always comes as a surprise to me when I discover when I just haven’t been listening to enough music. I’ve been struggling a bit to come up with songs for the past few weeks, until this one. I read a review of Art Brut’s Art Brut Vs. Satan, and was intrigued. Definitely right up my alley…straight ahead rock a la The Velvet Underground, with…non conventional…lyrics sort of blurted over the top in a barely rhythmic fashion. Sort of like an indie rock Wesley Willis. Except that it’s you know, a band, and has more than one song structure. Anyway, I listened to the album (I must get more of their stuff), and then sat down to work out this week’s song. The song came pretty much immediately, with the main frame of it done Sunday evening.

Disclaimer: this is the first song in this project that has included a guitar solo. There is a reason for this, as I play lead guitar like a drunken sixth graded with a broken arm. This is an upgrade, as I used to play like a drunken fourth grader with a broken arm. Proceed at your own risk. Likewise, the melody of the verse is pretty much the bottom of my vocal range. I had to change the melody I was planning, because I unfortunately couldn’t get any lower and stay in tune. Barry White I’m not. On the other end, I was singing an octave and a fifth above that for the harmony during the chorus. The extremes are fun.

As far as where the influences come in: Some of the chord progressions in this song remind me of Coming Up You by the Cars, and the verse melody has a passing resemblance to Use Less by Skinny Puppy. Art Brut is in there as the mental lubrication that got this song written.

Bed music was one thing. Lyrics were another. For the bulk of this week, I had no idea as to what this song was about. None of my normal methods produced anything. I went ahead and keyed out a melody to wrk with and listen to: still nothing. All I knew was that I wanted a type of contrast between verse and chorus, a resolution of sorts. I was driving around doing errands on Saturday when the first line came to me, along with, “The Answer in Me”. I wrote lyrics around it, but still wasn’t happy…it came out too dark, initially. I reworked it to being vaguely referring to some sort of problem, and called it good. I’m still not entirely convinced about the lyrics, I have, but what’s done is done. Or, as Shanah said, “I think it’s funny that you wrote a song about not being able to write a song.” Hey, write what you know.

I had one other song firmly wedged in my head this week, but was in no way an influence….the Slap Chop parody/remix, “Rap Chop”. I tell you, if that was actually the music for the commercial, I’d order ten of them.

Damn it, it’s in my head again.

Title: Lullaby
Genre: Folk/New Age
Time: 4:02
Key: C
Influences: I actually didn’t have any songs in my head when I wrote this.

Week 14 - In which the Songwriter spends the week fighting against what’s on his mind.

It was another musically distracting week, as I had a gig to prepare for on Thursday, playing a memorial service. Quiet music, of course, so I spent a lot of time this week playing flute and harp. With so much of my attention focused on one thing (solo gigs do that to me), ideas really weren’t coming for this week’s song. Compounding the issue was that I was still trying to think in terms of the rock songs that I’ve been writing of late.

So there I was, sitting down to write last night, still not wanting to do anything with the quarter-baked ideas I wrote this week, when I had the incredibly obvious realization: I’ve been focusing on harp music this week (which included a great deal of melodic improvisation). So, go with that, and create a quiet song that centers on harp. After making that decision, the song structure was done in about 15 minutes. Funny how quickly things can come together when you stop fighting what you’re supposed to be doing.

Anyway, using harp largely determined the key (my harp isn’t chromatic, but has levers so it can be set to play in three keys. Still, I’ve been focusing on C). I created the basic progression on fingerpicked electric guitar, oddly enough (first part recorded, last part to come in to the mix). Then it was a matter of figuring out exactly how to record a harp. I ended up with a sound that didn’t totally suck, but I still think I could do better with a microphone actually inside the soundbox, along with one pointed at the front of the soundboard. I’ll try that later. Since I was so late in the week, the recording is pretty rough. You can hear chair squeaks, and occasional coughing in the background, but it doesn’t bug me…the overall vibe of the song came across as quite relaxing.

After getting the chords nailed down, I improvised a melody on piano in Garageband. This allowed me to print out an actual music score, which I could then read for playing the flute and harp. As it was, I used it as more of a framework, but it still came across pretty consistently. I added some keyboard strings to pad out the sound, and it’s done. I’d like to add a verse of words, but I’m not sure what they would be, yet. We’ll see if something comes to me today.

Shanah came up with the name (which is somewhat of a trend), as after she listened to my mix, she said it was very lullaby-ish. I responded, “That’s the title! Er, minus the -ish.”

As a side note: yes, I have a harp. Thanks, Bobbie! The story behind it is that it had broken and been repaired about three times, and my friend Bobbie (of the Garlic Mustard Pickers) had given up on it. So, she asked me if I’d like to have it, and give a shot at repairing it. Never one to turn down something like that, I gratefully accepted.

The parts lived under my couch for a year, until I figured out what to do. The soundboard had kept popping out on previous repairs, so I figured on adding a reinforcing strip around the edge to hold it on, as well as epoxy on the edges, as well as a bead of hot glue…and small brads holding in the wood strip. Yes, overkill, but it had broken three times, and I wanted to be sure. I did this on my living room floor at the apartment in Cudahy, so it isn’t quite as clean as I would like, but it works…which is the most important thing.

Last amusing thing about the harp. I haven’t actually owned a handheld tuner in quite some time, instead using Garageband’s built-in tuner. As such, I haven’t really sat down to properly tune up the harp in quite some time. Turns out it was a full fourth low. No wonder it sounded so plunky and bad! I tuned it up properly, and now it actually sounds like a harp. It also requires a good 15 minutes of tuning before I sit down to record with it, but it’s a small price to pay.