songs:365

Month: January 2021

  • day 1: The Speed of the Sound of Loneliness

    The Speed of the Sound of Loneliness by John Prine

    The first thousand times I heard this song, it was on that Nanci Griffiths album of covers. We played it to death at the first record store I worked at, when I was 16.

    The thing about getting started with something is that you just have to start. Three takes, three chords, a comfortable song I know for going on 30 years, it’s as good a place to start as any.

    I didn’t get more familiar with John Prine until a couple friends went all In Spite of Ourselves at karaoke a few times in a row, and then John died right at the start of the pandemic, and then I listened to lots of him for a while.

    This one sits close to me because of the Nanci Griffths record, though, and everyone from that time.

    I’m in the middle of a whole workspace reorganization when it comes to computer things, so this is my laptop camera and my nice microphone and a struggle to get everything plugged in to these measly little USB-C ports at once, so I couldn’t get the mouse and the microphone both — anyway, you’ll see me adjust the scroll of the words a couple times.

    Tags:

  • why songs:365

    you learn to play guitar as a teenager, and when you stop taking lessons you stop learning. you never learn to read music, you don’t know much about fifths or eights or whatever but you can play a major seventh chord anywhere on the neck because you learned them for Eyes of the World or Stairway to Heaven or one of those. you briefly front a terrible high school band and nothing really happens in college despite constantly lugging a guitar or two around. you learn lots of songs, play them once or twice, and they fade. you grow up and have kids and teach them songs and play at the holidays and for your congregation and maybe even in the band. you want to play more.

    getting better isn’t really the goal. the goal is to play every day, and to be ok with just being ok at this.

    Normalize being kinda mediocre at something and still finding value in trying to get better at it.

    — Casey Johnston, aka Ask A Swole Woman

    The Rules

    eh, well, I thought about rules, like “play it in one take and post whatever happens” or “no editing or extra tracks allowed” and things like that, but honestly, that is less fun. the better rule, maybe, is that only thing to take seriously is playing something every day and posting it.

    The List of Songs

    …is a work in progress.