songs:365

Month: June 2021

  • day 181: Royals

    Royals, by Lorde.

    Almost halfway. Through the year. 2021.

    Seemed like a good moment to look up proper microphone positions and try one out. Seemed kinda decent before I decided to layer on more vocals, after wisely singing something resembling a harmony on a couple choruses on the main track? [nervous laughter]

    I attempted this song a few times on other nights earlier this year, and I’m not sure what stopped me, but the best performance tonight was in rehearsal, natch, and the second best was in the first take that I had to stop because my hard drive was full again, and reader, it’s full because “a song a day” adds up real quick when there’s a .mov from the video recording and then a .m4v from Garage Band and then a .mp4 coming out of iMovie to upload.

    There’s probably a better way? Maybe not?

  • day 180: Come Down Easy

    Come Down Easy, by Spacemen 3.

    The fun thing about this song is that I think there might be a few different iterations of it on different Spacemen 3 records? Like, why do the lyrics online say “In 1987…” if my memory of them singing “In 1986…” is so clear? Or maybe I was, uh, following their instructions a little too closely at times when I was listening to this music closer to 1996 and 1997, but whatever.

    This song is a simple blues thing that gets weird and psychedelic, because that’s what this band does with lots of songs.

    //

    I probably should’ve done more mixing to start out clean and ramp up the psychedelics on this track, but I did not, so it’s spaced out from the jump.

    And a little hot on one of the vocal tracks apparently? I did not catch that until I heard the video. Deal with it.

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  • day 179: Ramblin’ Man

    Ramblin’ Man, by Hank Williams.

    Had to triple-check I didn’t do this song yet, because I’ve done it at karaoke, and I sing it in the car pretty regularly, and it’s the first Hank Williams song I really fell for, and it’s only two chords long, and it’s late, and we just watched Parasite (for the first time) and it feels somehow relevant, but also not relevant.

    //

    Still having fun with reverb. And those are like 3/4 of the right harmonics, and I didn’t attempt the closing lick, because the rest of it went so well.

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  • day 178: Meadowlarks

    Meadowlarks, by Fleet Foxes.

    Definitely my best Fleet Foxes take so far, I think. This song popped into my head this morning and I stuck with it. All the usual confusion about how to sing and record harmonies applies. Had to check if the chords/fingering on this one was really as easy as it seemed (and I still didn’t get it perfect, but it’s alright), but there was no special weird tuning for this.

    The first Fleet Foxes album is a reminder that I really don’t remember where I heard the first Fleet Foxes album, or why I bought it, but I do remember that I first really played it for the family on our first drive to the Outer Banks in 2012, and I’m particularly reminded of one of the stretches of road near the Virginia-North Carolina border that kinda overflows with expectation, because it feels like you’re getting there even though there are still hours of drive to go, especially if it’s a Saturday and you’re going all the way to Corolla, like we did the first year.

    Family road trip next weekend, so I guess I’m bringing the guitar?

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  • day 177: 99.9ºF

    99.9ºF, by Suzanne Vega.

    Yeah, yeah, y’all know Luka and Tom’s Diner, but this album from 1992 was my jam. Working at the record store and maybe watching, like, Alternative Nation or something late at night on MTV is the only explanation for how I ever heard this song, but it is firmly embedded in my consciousness, and it’s been fun to get reacquainted with the whole record this week while I’ve been thinking of doing this one.

    //

    Uh, so this was a fun Saturday morning project in between loads of laundry. Feel like I caught the spirit of it, as usual with many more voices in the chorus to disguise my lack of range. I also feel like singing along with all these tracks makes it way harder for me to carry the melody, so the fuzzy background vocal you hear is probably the best approximation of the melody out of three tracks.

    I’ve gotten better at working with drum loops, recording a couple bars of bass, keys, etc., and then looping those, too, but I still had to do some light surgery on this one about 3/4ths of the way into the recording process to fix a bunch of tracks I broke.

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  • day 176: Personal Jesus

    Personal Jesus, by Depeche Mode.

    Not even a cover-of-a-cover, because I did it Depeche Mode style, and not Johnny Cash.

    Definitely mucked up, the, uh, middle, and, uh, well, let’s just say I did it in my own style. And also I forgot a verse when I recorded the backing guitar and didn’t really know how to get in and out of the chorus, and definitely did not do the weird breathing solo from the remastered long version, and resisted the urge to add synths, sticking with guitar loops and played a little drum riff and looped it myself, and also seriously the version of this song in my mind sounds a little different.

    For whatever reason, I associate this song with the “let’s show some music videos” segment of our early junior high school CCTV programming, which of course was highlighted by a newscast that I was never involved with, though in 9th grade, the experience of directing cameras and using a switcher was pretty much the deciding factor in me wanting to go to film school.

    //

    So that was a lot. The vocal thing was fun. Hard not to add too much.

  • day 175: Tennessee Stud

    Tennessee Stud, by Johnny Cash.

    It’s later years Rick Rubin produced Johnny Cash, so no surprise this song is actually a #cover-of-a-cover and is really a Doc Watson song.

    Lucky for me, I love Doc Watson songs, but haven’t listened to the classics in a while, so now he’s on the project list.

    I was describing my “oh crap I don’t have a plan and it’s getting late, better go to the Johnny/Willie/Bob well again” project planning method to my partner earlier tonight, and softly sang a couple ideas, and she suggested this one without further prompting, and my dears, her wish is my command, so it is done.

    //

    More echo, more reverb, more black hats.

    Apparently, Johnny plays this in B? But I learned it without a capo years ago. (Not coincidentally around the time I met my wife, and I like the open chords.)

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  • day 174: I Am A Scientist

    I Am A Scientist, by Guided By Voices.

    Another one from Bee Thousand, one of like two GBV albums that I’ve ever owned out of like six thousand they’ve made.

    This song is another sweet one, because the sweet ones are my favorites. Mostly. Feels appropriately lo-fi, even with the second crunchy guitar added, but no second vocal to save me from my own inner Robert Pollard. (I am rather sober, trust me.)

    //

    Probably could’ve used some simple drums, though that would be easier if I wasn’t mucking up the rhythm and playing the wrong chords.

  • day 173: Istanbul (not Constantinople)

    Istanbul (not Constantinople), by They Might Be Giants.

    I have carefully spelled “Constantinople” more in the past couple hours than I have since Ms. Green’s 9th grade World History class, which, not coincidentally, was the first time I fully grasped the meaning of this song.

    Later, TMBG were very specifically someone else’s music in high school, which meant I got just enough exposure to them to enjoy them without getting tired of them. Even during the brief span of time where our children were at the right age to enjoy the music TMBG made for children, as opposed to the rest of it, which is mostly also perfectly appropriate for children, the listening window was just short enough to learn every word to every song, and then immediately forget them when the record stopped.

    //

    I did not add enough violins or percussion or accordions, but I can live with it for now.

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  • day 172: Holiday

    Holiday, by Vampire Weekend.

    Happy Summer, people.

    This song is one of my favorite singalongs in the car, but also I remember hearing it in a Bed, Bath, and Beyond when we were still kinda new to listening to Vampire Weekend, and the song wasn’t that old, and it was kinda like, is this pop music now? It was confusing.

    //

    Come for the first day of summer; stay to hear me mess up my favorite line, while also doing some odd things to the melody because, uh, this song is like in a key I love, but an octave high for me, I think?

    The rhythmic knocking is my index finger smashing into the edge of the noise hole or whatever it’s called on my guitar and once it happens four times in a row, you’re kinda pot committed on this sort of thing, so I did my best to keep it up.

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