It WOULD Be Okay!

Haha!!

Hey guys! I wrote a new song! Guys?

…

Guys?

#33: It Would Be Okay

Aww Daisy

I wrote a new song! Ohhhhhh how I hate writing/listening to love songs. Writing songs about heartache is so much easier. There are only so many ways you can say “I love you” (my preference is “You’re the best!”) and I suck at writing lyrics as it is. Anyway, I like this damn girl. Lucky for me, she’s totally my girlfriend! I’m so lame and I hate myself. I’ve always found it really weird/creepy when artists write people’s names into their songs, but I couldn’t get that main hook out of my head, so I kept it. Sorry!

I tried to make this song pretty concise. And I wrote it while sitting in a courtroom during jury duty! The only time my memory has ever served me. The main theme was lifted from a song I wrote when I first attempted writing non-punk music in college. I really wanted a singable chorus, as my songs are nearly 100% void of those, and I think I succeeded to some degree.

IT LISTENS.

#32: Daisy

Oops

This was inevitable!

#31: Falling Out, presented in eight pretentious parts:

I – Wanting, Trying
II – Nobody Comes
III – Honest Moon
IV – Gravedigger
V – Confused/Hurt Itself In Its Confusion
VI – A Light On A Hill
VII – I’m Fading
VIII – The End

Oh, Dear Lord

Don’t even listen to this. I started writing the music for this in 2007 and just started fleshing it all out last year. While I did write the lyrics over the past six months, please, for the love of God, don’t read into them. Everything I write is an exaggeration. I’ll probably have one more and then (hopefully) be done with the post-relationship bullshit in my songs. It’s depressing.

It’s not that this song didn’t turn out how I expected, I think I just overdid it. By a lot. Also, today wasn’t exactly a “good voice day,” so forgive the vocals. (I was extremely tempted to tune some parts. Damn my dignity.) So, I was going to leave the song alone, but it’s this behemoth piece of music that had lyrics and melodies written, so I didn’t want it to it go to waste. It will never be played our used, but I feel great about having it out of my writing queue.

So, there’s that!

#30: Crisis on Infinite Earths (You’re welcome, Max)

Linear

So I guess I’m into writing really linear songs now. Since I’ve started actually teaching people how to play my music, I’ve realized that it would probably be a lot easier if the songs were… a lot easier. I’ve also gotten a lot of criticism about the needlessly complex places that my songs inevitably end up, and my only real response to that is “Cardiacs.” But hey, I feel like my life’s mission is to save music from… people… i.e., it’s my hot body, I do what I want.

This song doesn’t really have any direction, but I kind of like that about it. It complements the lyrics (and the incredibly consistent subject matter of the last three songs I’ve written [!!!]). Who needs choruses? I was talking to a friend this week about how lyrics are always the last thing I’m concerned with when writing a song. Does anyone want to be my Bernie Taupin? I tend to use a lot of words to say very little, or just vaguely say a lot of things. There’s a Lyric-writing for Dummies book, isn’t there?

Forgive my lack of pop filter and “falsetto.”

#29: Friction

Beach Music

*Update! It breathes less.*

Not beach music! I like to let my songs breathe, but this one might be getting to much air. I’ll shorten the intro when it’s played live, which… yeah, live.

#28: Is it Comforting?

Also, look at this dawg:

Took a Plane Break

What it is, y’all?

This song doesn’t have much to do with anything specific. It’s a result of general anxiety/feelings of failure as a result of change that’s been going on the past few months. I have one more that I’ll try to knock out soon, and then we’ll be back to our normal cheery selves (no?)! But all is well, obviously, as all always is.

In spite of the fact that I haven’t used my voice in about six months, this has been by far my easiest song to edit, probably because I’ve started smoking a pack of cigarettes and taking two shots of Tabasco every morning. Breakfast of Champions probably Clint Eastwood! Not really, but I drank a Zima once.

#27: Friendship

Also, stayndin.

Bros

I never really had a whole lot of friends growing up. I had three really close friends in Massachusetts and didn’t really talk to or see anyone other than that. When I moved to South Carolina, I had a hell of a time meeting people. Seventh grade is a bitch as it is, but moving to a weird city in a weird state in a really weird region of the US where kids at school care about social status and being a white American is not the minority was incredibly jarring. Despite being in forced social situations at school and church, I just couldn’t connect with anyone.

The first really close friendship I formed was based around music. Some kid’s band needed a bass player and I needed friends, so at 12 I taught myself how to play bass. After a few years, the band and friendship fizzled due to differing interests and my increasing obsession with music normally deemed unlistenable by kids my age. My next two really close friends came out of my next (terrible high-school pop/hardcore punk) band, and I’m proud to say that I still keep regular contact with one of them, and I still consider him one of my best friends.

When Ryan went to college and the band fizzled, I may or may not have made some tragic musical mistakes, but for length’s sake, I’ll skip on to the part where creepy old men started hanging out with me. Along with Ryan and, more recently, Alex, Jon and Adam, Jason is my very best friend in the whole wide world. I saw no one but him and the other three members of our band for a good five years. I’ve had few friends outside of music (thanks 10Best; RIP Van Winkle), but at this point in my life, when I think about, I have a great wealth of people in my life, some of whom live across the world, some of whom I haven’t talked to in years, some one of whom I’m related to, but I absolutely consider them all my dear friends.

ALL THAT TO SAY: This song is for my friends, more specifically, my “bros” (a term I hope to never use outside this blog post), and especially three people (none of whom know each other), though it’s absolutely for all my friends. I’ve been in a little shell for the past six months of living in a new city and haven’t spent much time with people other than my girlfriend and her fucking wonderful cats. A few weeks ago we went to Boston and I got to spend a whole lot of time with one of Katie’s college friends, Adrian and his roommate. I can’t talk about this without sounding like a loser, so I’ll be honest and say the bond was immediate and incredibly natural. I had more fun than I’d had in a while, and it was really really good to just be a dude for a few days. Sorry Adrian, I’m not hitting on you or anything (I totally am, but mostly on Brenden).

Number two is my second favorite thing to come out of my job at 10Best, Mr. Adam Tyner: Senior Vice President of Media Development Strategies. Since I moved, I’ve spent more time with Adam than any of my other friends. He is the single kindest, most genuine person on the gd planet, has incredible taste in music and has a movie collection exceeding the tredecillions. He also turned (insert age here) last week, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ADAM.

The other person I had in mind while writing this was the dude with whom I’ve experienced the most immediate love connection of all time, Sir Alex LaCasse II. Sadly, I moved away from Greenville about a month after befriending him, but I was built with exquisite long range capabilities. Alex is the best and nicest guitar player in the world, and he is the best person in the world to get crunk with.

I know it’s not PC to make a list of your friends, but this is my blog and you can ____ __ (I keep thinking about my parents reading this as I write it. Damn you, conscience!!!), or I’ve just been incredibly grateful lately for the people surrounding me, even if not in the physical sense. I’m so lucky to have the amazing friends that I do and I wouldn’t trade a single one of them for anything, except maybe some MUSICALLY TALENTED friends who would FOLLOW ME TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH (read: Rock Hill) to BE IN A BAND WITH ME. Geez, loyalty is dead.

#26: Beanbags

Yeah

Bostonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn.

This song was reeeeally hard to mix because I reeeeally like bass, and I’ll probably update this when I can get a better mix later this week, but for now, Bostonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn.

Katie wanted me to explicitly state that this song is not about me. Done. Everything before the first chorus progression are from my perspective and the rest of the verses are from the perspective of the person I’d be talking too. That’s probably against songwriting rules or whatever, but Bostonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn.

#25: Renaissance

or

Renaissance – this one sounds way better on headphones but is very very very bassy.

Don’t worry about it.

I’m Sorry

This song is terrible.

It is about everything. And nothing.

(Mostly nothing.)

#24: Everything and Nothing

…

I hope you love it!!!