songs:365

  • day 357: When The River Meets The Sea

    When The River Meets The Sea, by Emmet Otter.

    I first heard this song in the DVD-era revival of Emmet Otter’s Jug Band Family Christmas, which I had never seen as a child, and loved it dearly. It showed up again on our John Denver / Muppets Christmas CD, which comes from a totally different 1979 television show, which you could watch or not watch (the 1987 Muppets / Sesame / Fraggle mashup show is much, much funnier), but the songs are heartwarming and hilarious at times, of course.

    Needless to say, Emmet Otter is not the author of the song, and neither is John Denver, but rather, it’s by Paul Williams. Thanks to our friendly neighborhood Wikipedia page, I have also just learned that Paul Williams is the songwriter behind Rainbow Connection itself, several 1970s pop hit ballads, including “We’ve Only Just Begun,” by the Carpenters, which kinda slaps in its way, and, get this, plays a small role in Smokey and the Bandit, earning him immense street credit on my childhood block.

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    I am playing this in E, as John Denver does in the 1979 show’s soundtrack.

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  • day 356: Blue Christmas

    Blue Christmas, by Elvis Presley.

    And on the 356th day of the year, we return to this song, which kicked off this whole project when my wife gave me a ring light last Christmas, and the first thing I could think to try it out was a short recording of Blue Christmas. I posted a bit of it to my Instagram story, and a few of you liked it, I guess?

    When I decided to do some pandemic content, a song a day made sense. I considered Insta, but didn’t want to give Zuck all that content for free. Instead, I’ve done most of this project using WordPress (and in fact, WordPress.com, with a premium plan that allows for lots of video hosting), except for a handful of songs posted from vacations and other locations that were just plain easier to upload to YouTube and embed here.

    I have some ideas of what to do on Jan. 1 and after with alllllll thissss contenttttttt but also I will probably not do a “thing every day” in 2022, unless it’s, like, a picture of the new dog every day, which could be amusing as she grows, but also I will do something close to that anyway, and idk if I have the stamina to be a “dog content” person.

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  • day 355: All I Want For Christmas

    All I Want For Christmas, by Mariah Carey.

    This song, of course, was one I hated, ever so briefly. Well, maybe for a good five years or so. Until I didn’t. And then, I really didn’t. And then, I trolled and embarrassed my family with it at every opportunity. This is just another opportunity? Perhaps. I didn’t know what I was looking for in the drum loops, but it came out kinda bouncy, and I almost attempted a Jackson Five thing (honestly, I’d love to hear someone go all in on “what if the Jackson Five sang All I Want For Christmas Is You,” TikTok, get on this.)

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    Uh, so there are some tracks. No acoustic guitar, as it turned out, even though I’ve futzed around with it that way for years. I could probably do a quiet emo version, too.

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  • day 354: I Wish It Was Christmas Today

    I Wish It Was Christmas Today, by Saturday Night Live, I guess?

    There is a long list of Christmas songs that make me well up with tears of one sort or another, laughter included, and this song is one of them.

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    In front of the tree, mostly because the dog wasn’t in the mood to hang out in my office, but also, because Christmas.

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  • day 353: Last Christmas

    Last Christmas, by Wham!

    This song kicks off Christmas week here, and is one of two songs I use to completely troll my family at this time of year, in this case whenever a suitable discussion arises and we need to compare what we’re doing this year to what we did… Last Christmas.

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    I am not promising a Christmas song every day this week, but I will probably do a Christmas song every day this week, and could probably have done a Christmas song every day for the whole month of December, and still have a pretty deep bench of Christmas songs to trot out at opportune moments.

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  • day 352: But Not For Me

    But Not For Me, by Chet Baker.

    This song originates in a musical with Ginger Rogers singing it, if I understand correctly, though the lineage of some “standards” tends to run back to lines like “well, actually, it was used in six musicals no one ever saw before GInger Rogers made it famous,” but none of that really matters — OK, the Billie Holliday version certainly matters, and the Ella Fitzgerald version is well known — but otherwise, none of that really matters to me except the version of this song on Chet Baker Sings, a CD which I played to death, and/or which was killed in the great freshman-year-of-college-is-over-time-to-UPS-the-CD-collection-home-poorly which was several bad decisions layered on top of each other.

    As I understand it, bad decisions were a speciality of Chet Baker’s, and he is not alone in that respect.

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    This is one of a few jazz numbers I had penciled into the list. I’ve worked on John Coltrane’s Naima on and off for a couple decades, but idk if I will pull it off in the next 13 days. I have a Nature Boy on the list, mostly because I want to sing it. We’ll see.

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  • day 351: The rest of the Abbey Road Medley

    The rest of the Abbey Road Medley, by the Beatles.

    Once I commit to a bit, I see it through, as evidenced by this being day 351 of this project.

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    Put some more tracks and chaos into this, but it’s just as silly as yesterday, but it’s better than yesterday, but also there’s a verse missing here and there, and Her Majesty, well, I can do better. But it was fun.

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  • day 350: A good chunk of the Abbey Road Medley

    A good chunk of the Abbey Road Medley, by The Beatles.

    Uhhhh so this is 7 minutes of the Abbey Road Medley.

    This suite of songs (start here), as far as I took it tonight, was of critical importance to, hmmm, maybe my senior year of high school? Then again, the closing lines of “The End” were my key summer camp yearbook quote the summer after 10th grade. Then again, “The End” by the Doors was a much more important song at summer camp. Then again, I tried to play My Sweet Lord three times and was interrupted by myself or the dog on each attempt.

    Maybe I’ll play the rest of the medley tomorrow, just as unrehearsed.

    (Also noticed after publishing this, I messed up the day count yesterday. Sorry if you were depending on me to know how many days long this year has been, ugh.)

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  • day 349: You Are A Light

    You Are A Light, by Pavement.

    Whoopsie, this is awful.

    Whoopsie, I did Malkmus two days in a row.

    Whoopsie, I had a much easier (but louder) song halfway done, but the dog flipped out.

    Whoopsie, despite several runs at this song during the year, I was wholly unprepared to record this at 9:30pm in DADF#BE tuning on the acoustic, but, hey, full send.

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    Big shoutout to the person who transcribed all the Pavement and Malkmus songs through like 2015 or so in the right tunings.

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  • day 348: Gardenia

    Gardenia, by Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks.

    See, the new dog’s name is Jasmine, and there are a few flowers that I am comically allergic to / repelled by, including, in theory, something my mom calls “night blooming jasmine” that I assume exists, but also, gardenias. This came up in recent conversation, and I “hey siri”-ed myself a reminder to “sing gardenia” and so here we are with this song.

    Playing a Malkmus song that’s in standard tuning feels like taking a shortcut, but the changes are just too sweet. Like a gardenia.

    We had a gardenia bush in front of the second house I lived in as a kid, and eventually my mom had it ripped out because it was giving both of us headaches all the time and was just generally a nuisance.

    I’m somewhat surprised to learn this is the first non-Pavement (ok, except for the Silver Jews song I did in like the first week of the year I think) Malkmus-affiliated number in the project.

    All of Real Emotional Trash is amazing, and you should listen to it, and if I don’t attempt Baltimore, it’s because the electric guitar will probably rile up the dog, and really, nobody wants that, and especially not while the dog is either in the office with me, or while she is specifically not in the office with me.

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