Can’t Find My Way Home, by Blind Faith.
Surely in the year 2021, we can agree that Eric Clapton is not only not God, he is not a god, and he is not really that good a person, either. But Steve Winwood? I think he still gets the benefit of the doubt.
This song must’ve made it onto some late ’80s or early ’90s Best Of Eric Clapton CD I had back then, aside from any classic rock radio play.
Up From The Skies, by Jimi Hendrix.
This song is so chill, it pops into my head randomly, and not only have I never known the name of it, but it’s probably been 20 years since I listened to Axis: Bold As Love. Holds up pretty well!
I did not attempt a solo. Or an electric guitar. Or a wah-wah effect. Just wanted to sing this, and the very simple chords turned out to not be complicated jazz chords, but very simple blues chords. I can play a B9! It’s not hard. I am sure Hendrix was playing it upside-down.
Also, Jimi was talking about climate change in like 1967.
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Props to the very few people possibly ever reading this who know what my answering machine message sounded like in the years of, well, answering machines, and second phone lines for teenagers.
Also, listen to the original on headphones, please.
Angie, by the Rolling Stones.
It had been a few months since my last attempt at a Rolling Stones number, and this song didn’t require open G tuning or anything else out of the ordinary, so I sang it, for some reason, with a little flavor of Billy Corgan in some parts? Probably could try this with a capo up a full step to make it a little less rangey.
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I did a quick audio test with the webcam software using a different microphone, and I think the problem is the software not really being tuned for singing and guitar smashing. I will look into this in the future, but today, I sang/smashed into the phone.
4th Of July, Asbury Park (Sandy), by Bruce Springsteen.
OK, so, something is terrible about the sound in this new setup, tbqh, and I am not going to get to the bottom of it tonight. It is possible that my mic cable is kinked. It is possible that the windscreen pop filter thingie is deeply necessary. It is possible this webcam software doesn’t really do a good job with audio. And it is possible that I really do need to get a better stand/arm thingie (the first one was remarkably worthless) to hang it in front of my mouth, still picking up some guitar, instead of on the desk in front of the guitar, screaming along when I should be breathy and all that.
This song has been a wrong-lyric singalong for me in many cars over many years, but it was worth the wait to learn a little. Also, this would really benefit from a better approach with some little electric piano twiddles and maybe electric guitar in place of some calliope/accordion stuff.
Here Comes The Night Time, by Arcade Fire.
Spent the weekend at a soccer tournament, a zoo, a hotel room jam-packed with my immediate family, and a sun shining like 20% more brightly than expected, so now also sunburnt, which makes the idea of “night time” when anything is going to happen juuuuust mildly humorous.
This song is one of a dozen off Reflektor that I really enjoy. It feels wrong to not play the Part 2 part here — or is the problem that I just left off the fast part entirely and that’s why the ending was confusing for me?
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OK, so I got a new webcam, and it came with free software that lets me record with it directly, selecting the audio source I want to use and everything, and it’s just so downright civilized? I could’ve been using this for months? And months? Could improve the quality of the last 90-something days of this project, although it sounds like there are some audio foibles to this method maybe idk.
Took two tries to record any audio at all. btw this is like six minutes long.
59th Bridge Street Song (Feelin’ Groovy), by Simon and Garfunkel.
This song is one of the first we all fell in love with that one year at summer camp when we burned the entirety of the concert in Central Park into our souls (and that’s what I’m linking to here, as it’s the canonical version in my mind, as it is for many of the songs on this, well, on this cassette.)
Honestly, that bridge does not make me think of this song, tbqh. That bridge makes me think of Woody Allen movies (sigh) and the view from a cousin’s apartment (really nice), and not much else. I probably had a much more engaged relationship with the Holland Tunnel, or, OK, the Manhattan Bridge (having done many jobs Down Under the [mb] Overpass as they say), and a more troubled routine with the fickle Midtown Tunnel.
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Richmond, Virginia, from a soccer tournament, on a good day with the whole family and a zoo break.
Night Rider’s Lament, by Nanci Griffith.
We’ve previously established that I might play the whole Other Voices, Other Rooms record before the year is through, and this song is one that I regular walk around mumbling, but had no idea until, well, today, what it was called.
Night Rider’s Lament appears to be an old song by someone named Michael Burton, but you might’ve heard Garth Brooks cover it, or you might’ve heard Bill Callahan and Will Oldham cover it much more recently.
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Apparently this isn’t a key I can yodel in!
Radio Free Europe, by REM.
Listening to, yes, the Bandsplain podcast about REM, which either weirdly or on brand for both me and them was a really important band in my life for a very short but important period of time, around 16-17 years old.
I heard Orange Crush first, probably and The One I Love, sometime around 1990 at summer camp, and a few years later worked my way through the whole catalog, and at one point had all the CDs through Monster, before, well, the “college rock” scene changed, and they seemed almost comically over-the-top.
Caught myself singing along with this song today after a long stretch at the DMV (don’t ask) and a generally emotional few days.
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Not jangly enough.
Romeo and Juliet, by Indigo Girls.
This song was an Indigo Girls song for me long, long before I found out it was a Dire Straits song, and I’m not sure I’ve ever listened to the original on purpose, so this is just what it is.
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I never feel like I’m straining when I’m rehearsing. Is it because I sing louder when I record? I dunno. 265 songs in, 100 to go, and I should probably, like, be improving my singing along the way here, like maybe watch a YouTube video about how to sing or something?
Desperado, by the Eagles.
This song is annoying. Like, it would be bad enough if it were just another Eagles song that I had a moderate amount of attachment to from some radio play and a Best Of CD or whatever. (I must’ve owned Hotel California at some point.) But instead, the connection I have with this song is that for the boys a year older than us at summer camp, this was their stupid theme song. We really didn’t likely most of those boys, and when they were the oldest kids at camp, we reached an all-time high for the number kids that got kicked out or not invited back, including multiple friends of ours. They were not great role models.
No one got kicked out the year we were in charge.
Anyway.
The song is fine. It has some good lines. “Freedom? Oh, freedom. That’s just some people talkin’.” That’s a solid line.
I just listened to as much of the original I can stand, and… there are a lot of strings? Like, is that an orchestra? wtf. Checked the Linda Ronstadt version, and of course, it’s lovely, but… oh, two-thirds in, rises the orchestra as the strings swell. ok then, let’s check Johnny Cash’s later years cover… Alright, it’s fine, until the backup singer comes in, and it’s literally Don Henley. :eyeroll: