songs:365

  • day 137: From Hank to Hendrix

    From Hank to Hendrix, by Neil Young.

    The Harvest Moon album came out near the beginning of my junior year of high school, when I was fresh off a climactic finale to the summer camp experience of my formative years and… yeah it sounds like the soundtrack to some big life change because it is!

    This song was an early favorite of mine, and there are lines in it that still make me feel like an old man taking a look at my life, even if I was 16 then, and in the grand scheme of things, I’m not much older now. Does Neil Young make us all talk in clichés? Maybe. But maybe it’s alright to cheese it up sometimes for the greater good, isn’t it? Maybe.

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    Extra vocals, extra guitars, but I really need to do harmonica songs before the kids go to bed.

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  • day 136: Althea

    Althea, by the Grateful Dead.

    A third Dead song, and I did one two weeks ago? Fine. I have an excuse, and John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats is to blame (two songs, and I did one three days ago). He tweeted something about the album version of Althea being a rare canonical take on an album, compared to other songs where there are live versions that are understood to be more complete or something ANYWAY the point is I was reminded of this song like an hour ago and was compelled to record it tonight.

    https://twitter.com/mountain_goats/status/1394074829675016192?s=20

    This is one that got a lot of acoustic time in our sophomore year dorm room, especially when the Dead fan roommate (Hi Dan!) who could play (infinitely better than me with more talent and feeling than I can even approach now, especially on this number) had a couple friends over and we were treated to a guitar and voice trio arrangement and some of these people are professional musicians now maybe? I lose track, but these were not the other very professional musicians who were and are also still friends of ours but also, I’m so pleased it’s not that complicated, and I could kinda hack it.

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    Actually had to hack the video together after a computer-went-to-sleep mishap, but these things happen. Obligatory Bm scale noodling.

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  • day 135: Tangled Up In Blue

    Tangled Up In Blue, by Bob Dylan.

    This song always reminds me of a certain person, in one verse, and a certain time, in other places, and certain trips, elsewhere, and I think that’s the point, it’s a song about nostalgia, and everybody has some, even as they keep up their day jobs or even their day lives and every now and again crosses paths with their past, and it’s alright. Sometimes.

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    I think I accidentally discovered that panicked mouse scrolling to get more of the lyrics in view — when done to the Quicktime window capturing the video instead of the Chrome window with the lyrics — is probably how I occasionally freeze the recording, say, for example, two minutes into a seven minute song. So we won’t make that mistake again. Much.

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    Some extra guitar, and a fuzzy little solo at the end in the spirit of a harmonica, which I have, in this key, maybe, but should really clean up, having not put a mouth on it in like 15 years or so. Probably.

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  • day 134: Campus

    Campus, by Vampire Weekend.

    This song is for my daughter on her 14th birthday. It’s one of her favorites, and whenever we “jam” together (kinda), we like to sing along to this one.

    I was not sure I could play the extremely basic G major scale run and sing at the same time, and even this mediocre-but-complete edition would’ve absolutely disgusted my guitar teacher from 1990 who would’ve tossed his hair back, shaken his head, mumbled something about Steely Dan, and told me to practice that goddamn scale exercise for an hour a day or don’t bother having him over next week.

    Reader, I did not practice it enough.

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    How sparse is the original of this? I think it’s pretty sparse, frankly, maybe sparser than this. I added a bass to the guitar, a strategically placed backup vocal, and a little bit of a third guitar strumming the chords in one of the bits.

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  • day 133: No Children

    No Children, by Mountain Goats.

    Well, this went pretty terribly. Wasn’t really feeling a love song, so I played a breakup song, and it’s just too dang bitter for me. This one almost deserves the Johnny Cash (Rick Rubin years) cover treatment. Imagine him pronouncing “hand in unlovable hand!” Hey that’s a decent idea, I had, just now, after recording this song and having a hard time with it.

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    The dumb guitar riff from Margaritaville was way easier than the opening piano thing to this, which I tried on guitar and could not work out.

    (Uh, the, um, lyrics of this one are not an accurate reflection of the management’s opinion, and uh, etc.)

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  • day 132: I Am A Cinematographer

    I Am A Cinematographer, by Palace Brothers.

    I mean, how am I supposed to come back from literally Margaritaville? That’s right, we’re going to the well for one of the most pretentious songs I could possibly play, a Palace (Brothers/Music/(just Palace)/Will Oldham/Bonnie Prince Billy) number that harks back to when Cinematographer was pretty much my desired job title, and I was doing it in school a little, and then I walked away from New York City, and eventually California, oh, indeed.

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    Short and sweet, but had to add a second little guitar line and a little backup vocal because I am not that fragile.

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  • day 131: Margaritaville

    Margaritaville, by Jimmy Buffett.

    Every time I do a really dumb song, I think to myself, that is the dumbest song I will do for this project, but then, I do one even dumber.

    Growing up in Miami in the 1980s, Jimmy Buffett was unavoidable.

    This song and Cheeseburger in Paradise were the gateway drugs to watching a whole Bayfront Amphitheater show on PBS or whatever. The same songs over and over again on the radio, in every restaurant, and naturally 12x as much in the Keys.

    In my teenage years, I found out about Why Don’t We Get Drunk And Screw and adopted it as a countercultural anthem ok not really but still I was a pubescent boy and I liked it.

    Jimmy Buffett. Sigh.

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    Messed around and eventually kinda played the right guitar riff in the solo, kinda?

    Resisted the urge to add steel drums.

    Barely.

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  • day 130: Three Little Birds

    Three Little Birds, by Bob Marley.

    Look, I’m not trying to turn this into a gimmicky scavenger hunt project or anything, but “play a happy song real sad-like” is something I can do.

    I used to associate this song with summer camp and the homesickness we felt when we left for home, I suppose, but also there was a cover on a sweet children’s music CD we had on repeat the year at the beach when we arrived on a Friday but were dumb enough to go food shopping on Saturday morning and got stuck in the traffic coming back and it took us two hours to drive three miles — or at least that’s how it felt with two (smaller than now, anyway) children in the car and this CD on repeat.

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    Why the cowboy hat? idk, just wanted to hide under something.

    Why the noodly spacey second guitar? idk, just love to noodle on a major scale while trying to sound sad.

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  • day 129: My Body Is A Cage

    My Body Is A Cage, by Arcade Fire.

    This song was on the list early on. As noted earlier in the project, Arcade Fire is a family favorite. I end up mumbling this to myself on days my back aches, or my feet, or my knees, or I’m just feeling my age, but I can still dance with the one I love.

    I’ve also just learned there’s a Peter Gabriel cover of this, and it’s shown up in video game and television soundtracks, because of course it has. (It’s a bangin’ arrangement, too.)

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    Had to have some sort of organ, had to have a little guitar solo. The ending is a bit “hmm, don’t quite have the range for this” and then the main recording cut out a little early. It’s almost like storing 129 songs-worth of video on your laptop is unwise.

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  • day 128: When I Come Around

    When I Come Around, by Green Day.

    At the start of this project, I would not have predicted I would record one Green Day song, much less two, but here we are. I heard a new cover of this song by Nap Eyes a few minutes ago and decided it sounded like fun.

    Also, I needed a break from more meaningful personal stuff.

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    Synths make everything better, right? Also, the drums were fun. I recorded one guitar line playing a bassline in some parts and soloing in other parts, split them up, and applied the appropriate effects to each track. Seemed efficient.