songs:365

  • 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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  • day 171: Lights

    Lights, by the Jayhawks.

    This song is another off the Sweet Relief tribute to Victoria Williams, Lucinda’s sister, circa the year I worked at the first record store. (The original is sparse and sweet and amazing.)

    For a long time it was my “going back to wherever I live after a trip somewhere else” song, as the plane descended into New York, or anywhere else, and the lights of the city look so good.

    //

    Father’s Day project, started in the morning before our hike out at the Manassas battlefield park, and finished after, but before dinner.

    I can’t really sing the high parts in this, but the rest of it is passable, including, surprise, this key works just fine for one of my ol’ harps. (I cleaned it up a little. but I think I’m supposed to soak it or something to limber it up after sitting in a box on a shelf for a bunch of years.

    Oh, and there’s no good chord chart for this on the internet, so I had to figure it out myself, more or less. I really need to sign into my account at one of those places and submit this one.

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  • day 170: I Will

    I Will, by the Beatles.

    This song is one I’ve seen in a songbook I’ve owned for probably going on 30 years, and it looked much, much harder before I bought a capo. Bit easier now! But not so easy that I don’t keep messing up the same parts on multiple tracks of guitar that I keep adding to cover up the mistakes on the first track, ha, ha ha.

    Limping closer to the halfway point of this project — and 2021 — but it still feels like it’s all passing much more quickly than last year, doesn’t it?

    //

    Oh, btw, I bought new headphones, and they’re better than ancient iPhone thingies, I think?

    Also, I will work on the terrible guitar strap rubby noises that come through so clearly with the microphone and the guitar where they tend to be on quiet numbers like this one.

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  • day 169: Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay

    Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay, by Otis Redding.

    Kids, this is not my best work here, but we’re doing what we can with the time we have.

    This song is not my favorite Otis Redding song, but of course it’s the first one I ever heard.

    //

    I did the whistling bit.

  • day 168: Holding Out For A Hero

    Holding Out For A Hero, by Bonnie Tyler.

    Yes, we’re watching Loki. Honestly, this song gets mixed up with We Don’t Need Another Hero from Mad Max: Beyond the Thunderdome in my head, so I didn’t immediately place it on the Footloose soundtrack, which, in retrospect, I must say, was extremely influential for me.

    I mean, I guess? Look, all I remember is planning some pretty intricate performances to it in mom’s photo studio (previously referenced here regarding Willie Nelson’s Red Headed Stranger album) with the cassette playing on the boombox. (Honestly, looking it up now, maybe only side 1?) Holy cow, Almost Paradise sits squarely in the sweet spot between being a banging proto-power ballad duet and Stranded At the Drive-In from Grease.

    Also, I have no idea what was supposed to happen in the bridge of this song, and have no memory of it.

    This will probably not be the only Bonnie Tyler song in this project.

    //

    Played with some reverb settings. Still have a cold. We said goodbye to the dog today, but I don’t have the guts to sing about it yet.