songs:365

Month: January 2021

  • day 31: Overlord

    Overlord by Dirty Projectors.

    Welp, this went poorly. As you can see by the poorly synced vocals, I layered on several additional tracks of my flat singing, which is always a treat. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I like how the little intro came out, and I’m not even mad about the complete “forgot-to-hit-autoscroll-so-I-need-to-pause” dissolve edit.

    Someday soon on days like this when I have time to add this many bad ideas, I will have the good idea of starting with a beat and not the rhythm guitar / vocal combo which makes editing and mixing a little silly.

    The original song is lovely, as is the rest of this Dirty Projectors album/series thing.

    One month down.

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  • day 30: Do Re Mi

    Do Re Mi by Woody Guthrie.

    Believe it or not, this is another one I first heard on that Nanci Griffith cover album. It didn’t take that many years for me to hit a nice solid Woody Guthrie (ahem, Boodie Guppie, if you read that one book of Bob Dylan poetry) phase.

    This meant something specific during the years we lived in California, mostly as grad students and/or bartenders and/or early-career journalists and/or newlyweds and/or new parents.

    Raw and unedited, or mixed, as is obvious, and I flub the beginning and the ending terribly, but if this were perfect, we could afford to live in California. 😉

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  • day 29: Down There By The Train

    Down There By The Train by Johnny Cash (originally by Tom Waits)

    The American Recordings series of Johnny Cash albums were a favorite of mine toward the end of my years in New York, but this song ended up being the one I learned best back then. I was playing it a lot when I met my wife, and so it stuck with me.

    I didn’t read the liner notes closely enough in those days to figure out this was a Tom Waits song — I might’ve not known that until looking it up earlier this month to put on my list for this project. Tom’s original is just as sweet, even a little less dark. Oh, and there’s a bonus verse I’d never heard.

    One full take after a false start, just a little reverb and whatnot, and we’re done. The end of a long week.

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  • day 28: Everybody’s Talkin’

    Everybody’s Talkin’, by Harry Nilsson

    …but, as noted yesterday, originally by Fred Neil, who I had never heard of until recently.

    I know I heard this song as a kid on the radio long before ever coming within 30 yards of anything to do with Midnight Cowboy, but Midnight Cowboy was also an early feature of film school in New York, looking back just a few years in time to see the city seedier. If my freshman year of college was 25 years after that movie, then it’s now been more than 25 years since my freshman year.

    It’s not a song about New York, though, it’s a song about leaving New York. Rizzo on the bus to Miami, when I preferred traveling in the opposite direction. Until I left New York, too.

    Got this one done before dinner so I could stretch out my voice a little, but stick around through the first couple minutes to watch me not hit the high note at all and mess around a little. One take, though, with a little bit of extra guitar, vocals, and the requisite weird software keyboard basic bassline.

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  • day 27: Dolphins

    Dolphins by Cass McCombs (originally by Fred Neil)

    This is 100% a song I heard because Spotify put it on a playlist for me. It’s a cover by Cass McCombs, who has some records out, along with the Chapin Sisters.

    Apparently the original author, Fred Neil, was huge in the NYC folk scene in the ’60s, so much so that you’ve heard his song Everybody’s Talkin’ as made famous by Harry Nilsson in Midnight Cowboy, and I should add that one to the list, but also… ALSO… he got into dolphins, met Ric O’Barry, and worked for animal rights (well, dolphins, at least) for decades after.

    A little backup vocal and some sort of software electric piano on the choruses.

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  • day 26: Red Headed Stranger

    Red Headed Stranger by Willie Nelson.

    There are certain albums that call to mind an extremely specific setting, no matter how many times and formats and states and conditions I listen to them in. This is one of them! There are others.

    I am no more than eight years old, and this is the tape my dad listens to while putting up the carpet and other bits of the first retail storefront studio my mom called her place of business for a decent chunk of my youth. No need to close my eyes either, I could probably draw the gray carpet on the walls (a short pile, good for lots of velcro-backed frame corners to choose from) and smell the wood and paint and beginnings of the place, while Willie sang words I barely noticed.

    A concept album from 1975, who would’ve expected that… 😉

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  • day 25: Not

    Not by Big Thief.

    I fell hard for this song earlier this year, and it deserves to be played and sung louder than this, but when I decided to stop working and play it, the dog decided that she needed my attention (she did) and the phone rang (it was important) and the trick to doing something like this every day might be to make time, but it really is less stressful to finish these up late at night.

    It feels just a little like being a teenager again, futzing with guitar effects under the black lights (and Doors posters) and incense burning and obviously up too late.

    Voices, guitars, one weird software mellotron thing for the bassline “violins.”

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  • day 24: Sausalito

    Sausalito by Conor Oberst.

    There’s a Bright Eyes record that got me through some hard times and long trips when our first kid was born, and this isn’t it. This is off a Conor Oberst album from a couple years later, I think? I’m pretty sure this is a CD that’s floated around between the cars, and more recently I’ve been playing it off my phone in the car with the second kid,. and he tolerates it, which is nice. Just wanted to play something sweet today.

    A couple guitars and vocals, and one weird software mellotron underneath (and apparently way too loud). I would’ve added electric guitar and clumsily mashed in the fills if I had a little more time before everyone went to bed.

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  • day 23: Third of May / ÅŒdaigahara

    Third of May / ÅŒdaigahara by Fleet Foxes.

    I’ve already mentioned Fleet Foxes here. I’ll probably do more than one song, but this was a good challenge for a Saturday afternoon. I do not have Robin Pecknold’s range, and layering on more voices singing it wrong doesn’t help.

    This particular song doesn’t have a particular special meaning for me — not nearly as much as, say, Helplessness Blues, or even Blue Ridge Mountains, so we might have to get to those another day. But I do love the chords and parts of this one, even if I kinda muddle the ending. (And I don’t even attempt the other two minutes of the instrumental after the lyrics wind down.)

    Aside from the obvious backup singing, there’s a little electric guitar track, and then software electric piano and flute to add some more low and high bits.

    Robin’s notes are all over the Genius page for this song.

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  • day 22: New Coat of Paint

    New Coat of Paint by Tom Waits

    A little less country and a quiet one tonight. New Coat of Paint opens Heart of Saturday Night. It’s a scene setter. Before Tom Waits breaks your heart six or eight different ways. Easy enough to point back to that first record store job again as the first place I heard Tom Waits.

    I might’ve been mumble-singing this one while walking the dog this morning. (Sorry, neighbors. Not sorry, herons.)

    Added software vibraphone and tuba because we’re having fun here, folks.

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