songs:365

Month: May 2021

  • day 131: Margaritaville

    Margaritaville, by Jimmy Buffett.

    Every time I do a really dumb song, I think to myself, that is the dumbest song I will do for this project, but then, I do one even dumber.

    Growing up in Miami in the 1980s, Jimmy Buffett was unavoidable.

    This song and Cheeseburger in Paradise were the gateway drugs to watching a whole Bayfront Amphitheater show on PBS or whatever. The same songs over and over again on the radio, in every restaurant, and naturally 12x as much in the Keys.

    In my teenage years, I found out about Why Don’t We Get Drunk And Screw and adopted it as a countercultural anthem ok not really but still I was a pubescent boy and I liked it.

    Jimmy Buffett. Sigh.

    //

    Messed around and eventually kinda played the right guitar riff in the solo, kinda?

    Resisted the urge to add steel drums.

    Barely.

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  • day 130: Three Little Birds

    Three Little Birds, by Bob Marley.

    Look, I’m not trying to turn this into a gimmicky scavenger hunt project or anything, but “play a happy song real sad-like” is something I can do.

    I used to associate this song with summer camp and the homesickness we felt when we left for home, I suppose, but also there was a cover on a sweet children’s music CD we had on repeat the year at the beach when we arrived on a Friday but were dumb enough to go food shopping on Saturday morning and got stuck in the traffic coming back and it took us two hours to drive three miles — or at least that’s how it felt with two (smaller than now, anyway) children in the car and this CD on repeat.

    //

    Why the cowboy hat? idk, just wanted to hide under something.

    Why the noodly spacey second guitar? idk, just love to noodle on a major scale while trying to sound sad.

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  • day 129: My Body Is A Cage

    My Body Is A Cage, by Arcade Fire.

    This song was on the list early on. As noted earlier in the project, Arcade Fire is a family favorite. I end up mumbling this to myself on days my back aches, or my feet, or my knees, or I’m just feeling my age, but I can still dance with the one I love.

    I’ve also just learned there’s a Peter Gabriel cover of this, and it’s shown up in video game and television soundtracks, because of course it has. (It’s a bangin’ arrangement, too.)

    //

    Had to have some sort of organ, had to have a little guitar solo. The ending is a bit “hmm, don’t quite have the range for this” and then the main recording cut out a little early. It’s almost like storing 129 songs-worth of video on your laptop is unwise.

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  • day 128: When I Come Around

    When I Come Around, by Green Day.

    At the start of this project, I would not have predicted I would record one Green Day song, much less two, but here we are. I heard a new cover of this song by Nap Eyes a few minutes ago and decided it sounded like fun.

    Also, I needed a break from more meaningful personal stuff.

    //

    Synths make everything better, right? Also, the drums were fun. I recorded one guitar line playing a bassline in some parts and soloing in other parts, split them up, and applied the appropriate effects to each track. Seemed efficient.

  • day 127: Garden Song

    Garden Song, by Peter, Paul, and Mary.

    Doubling up here with a song I recorded today for Dad’s memorial service.

    This song is a multi-generational family favorite, with roots in the Peter, Paul, and Mary kids concerts we all saw on PBS pledge drive weeks in the 1980s and beyond. (Can I sing “I know an old lady who swallowed a fly” note for note matching the VHS, including the funny voices and weird throat noises? I mean, kinda, I’m a dad, too.)

    Our parents know it, our kids know it, and it’s a good lesson about doing the work. Plant seeds, give them what they need to grow, and don’t stop.

    //

    There’s a second vocal and a noodly second guitar track, but I was kinda in a hurry to get this done on time today so I could finish writing my speech.

    And of course, doing the reading on this one, it was written by David Mallett circa 1975, so it’s not an old Pete Seeger tune, but Pete Seeger did record one, as did Raffi, Arlo Guthrie, John Lithgow, and literally John Denver with the Muppets.

  • day 126: Home on the Range

    Home on the Range, cowboy traditional.

    Honestly, there are authors, but unpacking the Wikipedia page for this song feels like a whole research paper. Safe to assume I was doing it with some combo of Sons of the Pioneers (with or without Roy Rogers), Riders in the Sky, and idk maybe Sesame Street on repeat in my head.

    //

    Semi-successful multi-part “harmony” without digital processing, kinda? Maybe? Maybe not. I’ll take it. Happy Birthday, Dad.

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  • day 125: Red Right Hand

    Red Right Hand, by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds.

    Did I see Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds live at Lollapalooza in 1994? Probably. I mean, I was there, and I vaguely remember this happened.

    Are we a season behind on Peaky Blinders because we really just couldn’t take that much more violence at that particular moment? Yes.

    Did I add synths to this song? Yes.

    Do I regret it? No.

    Did I forget the giant timpani drums? Yes.

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  • day 124: California Stars

    California Stars, by Billy Bragg and Wilco.

    Famously with lyrics by Woody Guthrie (sometimes still Boody Guppie in my household due to a silly book of Dylan poetry — Bob, not Thomas) set to music by Bragg and Wilco, I always think I don’t have a thing for this song and inevitably, I do. (Kinda like California.)

    It’s not just that it reminds me of camping with my wife that one time in California, before kids and office jobs, but that’s part of it. It just does its own good job of transporting to another place without time. (Kinda like California.)

    //

    Anyway, layered on extra guitars and calling it a night here.

    All the days are long right now.

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  • day 123: Cold Cold Heart

    Cold Cold Heart, by Hank Williams.

    I’m not really sure when I got into Hank (Senior) for good, but it was likely after college when I played a Greatest Hits CD until I had accidentally just about memorized most of it. Even at this moment, after playing this song, I have Kawliga and On The Bayou stuck in my head, and it’s totally involuntary.

    Hank (Senior) is great, and Hank (Junior) is terrible, but if you really want to go for a ride, spend a meaningful amount of time with Hank III, who plays shows that are half straight up country where he sings just like Hank (Senior), and half psychobilly punk and it’s all terrific.

    //

    Back in the basement office, with a notable (audible) change: Some natural reverb from the new vinyl plank floor, replacing the (wet) carpet. As noted on this track, the refrigerator also gets that natural amplifier, though of course it’s quiet now that I’m editing and writing.

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  • day 122: Eyes of the World

    Eyes of the World, by the Grateful Dead.

    This song is one I learned in college from a sophomore year suitemate in our shoeboxes-stacked-neatly-but-not-brutalist dorm, where we lived in a much-envied specialized accessibility suite we didn’t need, because they build more than they needed, into said dorm which had a 13th floor and there was a story that it only had one of those because it was built during a union strike and union-built structures in New York City don’t have 13th floors. (That last part can’t possibly be true.)

    I think the unauthorized (on multiple fronts) Calvin-and-Hobbes dancing tie-dye shirt I bought at my second Grateful Dead show at Madison Square Garden freshman year (uh I managed to stay busy my first couple months in New York) on literally my 18th birthday had the “Sometimes the songs that we hear are just songs of our own” quote on it, and it’s still cute.

    //

    Took the keyboard out to do an awkward organ thing and messed it up a little but like how it turned out. Walked around an E major scale to try and Jerry it up, too, and it’s OK.

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