songs:365

Month: June 2021

  • day 161: Blank Space

    Blank Space, by Taylor Swift.

    …but obviously I’m covering the Ryan Adams cover.

    Why? Because it’s in a key I can deal with, and an expectation I can deal with, and instrumentation I can deal with, including this guitar that’s still missing a high E string, because tonight I decided to just replace the one string real quick and looked for strings and realize all I have are electric strings, which probably also need changing, so it’s time to get some acoustic strings.

    Stay tuned. (ha)

    When Ryan Adams put out his album that was a cover of the Taylor Swift album, this song was my favorite, but I liked the whole thing a ton, and said so, and said something about how it took Ryan Adams to get me into Taylor Swift, and I got absolutely roasted on Twitter because I shouldn’t need a dude to get me into songs that Taylor Swift wrote, and it’s true, and I feel like I’ve done my penance by singing backup on Shake It Off at karaoke a lot in the past few years?

    //

    I have a Ryan Adams story, but it’s confusing and hard to track down evidence online that this happened.

    But, briefly: One of the last music videos I worked on in New York City in the summer of 2001 was a Ryan Adams video. I don’t really remember the song, but we filmed him riding around in a limo all over town and sorta partying. I don’t remember shooting him playing the song.

    And then Sept. 11 happened, and instead of that limo video, the “I’ll always love you New York” video with the city in the background came out.

    So that was a weird experience.

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  • day 160: Harlan

    Harlan, by Freakwater.

    It seems unfair to record the one Freakwater song that the dude in the band sings, but I’ve always loved singing it, and it’s easy, and I needed something easy tonight. This song isn’t as iconic as Picture In My Mind, which should be next on my list for this band, but it’s certainly timeless.

    And I checked, and it’s not a cover-of-a-cover, but maybe Harlan (1998) fits somewhere in the mythology with Goin’ Back To Harlan (Emmylou Harris / Anna McGarrigle, 1995), and You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive (Darrell Scott, 1997), or maybe Harlan, Kentucky just loomed large as an Americana symbol town in the mid-1990s?

    //

    Did I have time today to restring the acoustic? Nope.

    Did I start recording long past 9:30pm? Yep.

    Did I want to play this song without a high E string? Nope.

    Did I take the sticky, high action, hard to stay in tune big ol’ Blueridge acoustic I played from years 16-40 of my life out of the closet? Yep.

    Did it stay in tune? Nope.

    Did I play a little solo anyway? Yep.

  • day 159: Jemima Surrender

    Jemima Surrender, by The Band.

    I kinda felt bad about how terrible this came out until I read the Wikipedia page about this song, saw that everyone was playing out of position, and now can’t decide if I should feel worse because The Band just screwing around in the studio with a fun over-the-top song is so much better than me, or, more likely, if I should just feel good about getting this in the can after a bunch of false starts, continuing to play with yesterday’s broken/missing string, the electric guitar bit sounding kinda wanky, my vocals leaving much to be desired, but I gotta tell you, I don’t really care tonight, and I’m exhausted, and not every song can be Bon Iver.

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  • day 158: Blood Bank

    Blood Bank, by Bon Iver.

    Whoooooooooooo wheeeeeeee we are getting into it now, when it comes to songs I’ve been singing along with for years but never had the fortitude to really look up and try to play.

    I left the acoustic in the weird Fleet Foxes tuning last night, and looked for something similar tonight, but also kinda wanted to play something by The Band, and gave Jemima Surrender a couple false starts (it’s just in dropped D tho) before dinner. Came back after the kids’ bedtime, gave a Pavement song a shot, put it on the list for later, and kept spelunking for anything near this tuning that I could pull off, Dylan and Stones aside.

    Lo and behold, my favorite Bon Iver song is in an even weirder tuning if you believe what you read on the internet. I just played this song in DG#CGG* and the asterisk is because it’s supposed to be a D but I finally broke a dang string.

    Fittingly enough, I was flipping through guitar videos on Insta (my one remaining Facebook-owned vice/communication de-vice), and saw two things: 1) a TikTok about changing your dang strings, and 2) an old video of BB King (not my favorite but whatevs) playing some Gospel blues, on stage, and changing out his broken high E string while singing and no one else missed a beat.

    Inspirational! So I broke a string.

    And then I played this song, which I love.

    //

    Also, ya gotta layer in the Oooooohs. A bunch of those, but just one backing vocal. Kinda feel like I got the right feeling, though. Weird tuned broke string guitar and a second guitar transposed down for a pumping bassline through the whole thing.

    Feeling good about this one.

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  • day 157: Helplessness Blues

    Helplessness Blues, by Fleet Foxes.

    Playing catch-up here with the Fleet Foxes songs, ever since I realized they were only on like 2 and Wilco was at 4 or 5.

    This is another one where I remember where I was — if not the first time I heard this song, definitely one of the first times I had this album in my ears after it came out was sitting at my desk at the job I was working in 2011 — actually, it’s the desk I was sitting at when the East Coast earthquake happened, which was only a couple months later.

    Anyway, this is always one I feel deep down inside, always facing that tensions between being raised up believing I was special and bound for some sort of solo success, and as I mature(d) finding fulfillment in being a cog, working head down in service of some sort of progress.

    But also, it does a good job of relaying the omnipresent threat/wish/dream to throw it all away and get ourselves a farm.

    //

    I thought this would be a longer weekend project, but instead tried to exercise some minor degree of self-control and not layer on six more tracks until it turns to mud like that Cumberland Blues the other night (yeesh).

    So it’s in a weird D6 tuning or something — the chords on the internet are wrong, but there are almost-right versions, and somehow a video that is righter, but still wrong. I didn’t go looking on Robin Pecknold’s Instagram or videos for the right answer yet, but there probably is one, and it’s not playing the D#maj7 the way I was playing it.

    Added the electric and discovered my 7-year-old fancy cable is more busted than my 25+-year-old cheap cable, which should not surprise me, but still. One more vocal, then doubled it for the last bits with a little transposing for something resembling harmony.

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  • day 156: We Are Nowhere And It’s Now

    We Are Nowhere And It’s Now, by Bright Eyes.

    Something upbeat on a Saturday night! (Just kidding.)

    I might mess around and try to play every song on this album before I’m done. It feels like Conor Oberst is just plain showing off his one-liners on this song, and I, for one, am here for it.

    “If you hate the taste of wine, why do you drink it till you’re blind?”

    Kills me every time.

    //

    Put a goofy effect on the noodly guitar, and left the vocals all lonely and vulnerable. Didn’t play it all the way through before recording, so you can watch the lyric about his “favorite neon sign” catch me by surprise and make me smile. 😉

    [EDIT: Also kinda glad I didn’t try to do the background vocal, because on the album it’s Emmylou Harris, and I don’t think I can keep up with her.]

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  • day 155: Cumberland Blues

    Cumberland Blues, by the Grateful Dead.

    Well, it’s been a whole 20 days or so since I did a Dead song, so here we are. This song leads off Europe ’72, I think? The ridiculous harmonies (?) in the first verse made me so happy when I put this on in the car this week, I decided to try it out myself.

    The great thing about having only been to two Dead shows, is it’s pretty easy to remember some of what they played, and I can always look it up, and probably even listen to the shows without much trouble. I think they opened the first show I went to with In The Midnight Hour, which was fun, and during the second show they played Terrapin Station, which I was told at the time was a treat, and it was a treat.

    //

    Probably should’ve laid down a nice clean brush/train drum loop, but I did the vocal first, so my MIDI keyboard drums are, uh, present. The whole thing is kinda chaotic, rather than locked in, really, the opposite of locked in, mostly. Loose out? I dunno.

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  • day 154: Sisters of Mercy

    Sisters of Mercy, by Leonard Cohen.

    Honestly, if this song doesn’t remind you of anyone, or several anyones, I feel bad for you. But there’s always hope, maybe it will remind you of someone(s) in the future.

    //

    The nights this goes well, it’s because I can tell my basic guitar skills are improving. (I think this went well!)

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  • day 153: Yesterday

    Yesterday, by the Beatles.

    What’s the first Beatles song you can remember hearing as a kid? Is it this song? For some reason, I think maybe it’s this one for me, but then pretty quickly I took possession of my mom’s LPs of Meet the Beatles and Rubber Soul, so Michelle and a few others loom heavily in my early consciousness.

    I could say more about the Beatles. But not right now, I’m exhausted.

    //

    Just a simple (capo 5) set of changes, no big deal, always seemed harder than this before. This is one I might remix in the future to add, oh, idk, a string quartet, and piano and bass, and etc. but I’m not sure I ever noticed how short this song was before, too?

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  • day 152: Coal Miner’s Daughter

    Coal Miner’s Daughter, by Loretta Lynn.

    I’m sure I had heard Loretta Lynn a little before I saw the movie, but the movie made me a fan for life, as a movie will do. This song was the centerpiece of the story, and even if I enjoy a raucous “Don’t Come Home A-Drinkin’” just as much, this one makes me feel things, so it got the nod.

    //

    But I sang it like Johnny Cash? Does he cover this? I feel like I’ve heard him sing it. Kept it basic tonight, because not every day can be Purple Rain, y’know?

    Also, did I remember there was a key change in this number? I mean, sure. Did I remember there were two?? Not so much.

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