At Last!

A new song! And (BONUS!) an older song with new vocals!

So lyrically, both of these songs are a little on the depressing side. It’s been kind of a rough week or so and I’ve been getting kicked in the ass with anxiety and fear, so that’s what these two songs are about! I think overall, they’re more too weird to be depressing though.

Bipolar was originally named because of the way the music felt and made me feel. While I have no trace of bipolar disorder, I can have some wicked anxiety sometimes, so that’s what the song is about. The phrase “Satan in a Strawberry Patch” came from a conversation about fear that I had with some friends a few years ago. It came to light that one of my good friends (Leah) has fragariaphobia (fear of strawberries?), in either a legitimate or exaggerated form, because I’m still not 100% convinced it’s real. Anyway, she either had a dream about Satan in a strawberry patch or we just used to talk about it to freak her out… I’ve wanted to write a song about that for years and I finally did it! Yay me! Uhhh… but I’m not really sure how the ending turned into Stew Johnson Gospel Hour… don’t hate

Also, the anxiety is pretty okay now (God always helps me out with that and I have an amaaaaazing girlfriend who is good for hugging), U NO HOW LIFE B.

#14: Satan in a Strawberry Patch

#12: Bipolar (Now with vocalz!)

Oh, Ah New Song

Over the past sixish years, I’ve had one Word document where I write all my lyrics and song ideas. I have no idea specifically what this song is about, because I have no idea when the lyrics were written, but the general concept is pretty obvious. The song started with the “bassline”, which is obviously ripped from a Prince song. I’m really proud of the drum machine patterns, mostly towards the end. Also, it has vocals!

Behold, my most pretentious song title yet:

#13: (Even Rats Flee) Sinking Ships

Bipolar

Oh hello there. Has it been a week? That was simultaneously the longest and shortest week ever. And this week will be no shorter/longer.(??) My initial intent for this song was to use/create sounds that I’ve never used before. I succeeded to some extent and found a few really cool sounds (though I did default to a Rickenbacker and the organ I used last week). I could not for the life of me write vocals for this song. I finally gave up around 3pm today. I’ll keep thinking about it this week and post an updated version if it happens. L8r.

#12: Bipolar

Hooray!

A new song! This didn’t turn out at all how I imagined/intended. It’s pretty weird and it might be terrible. Everything was very unplanned and “off the cuff” if you will (you will). I’m well aware of how overpowering the bass is; I simply couldn’t make it sound how I wanted.

I love you!

#11: Soft Science

Nope

I’m absolutely not posting a song this week (yesterday?)

I’ll try to get two for next week, but I’m not making any promises (… I promise)

Deceptive Song Titles!

Sunday comes early this week! This week’s lack of work inspiration led me to finish my song two days early; what a preasant feering.

After listening to this song 54,216,u36,5i6 times, I’ve come to the realization that it is LONG. Also, the first seven minutes are pretty depressing. BUT, this is the fist time one of my songs has created an emotional shift in me and makes me want to good cry when I listen to it. Like the first time I heard The Zookeeper’s Boy… <3 This is exciting for me and might mean that my songwriting is improving?!? Or it’s because of how longgg it is.

Overall, I’m pretty happy with this one. The bass is a Kay Hollowbody, with which I am now totally obsessed. I forgot how much I like the sound of flatwound strings. It sounds kind of like a beat-to-hell Rickenbacker. I think the vocals are mostly good and for some reason my voice felt like singing really high at the end. This will be one of the easier songs to recreate live when ( if :[ ) I ever get a band together. Any takers? Plz? I wont give you any creative control or money! How can you pass that up?

#10: This is the End

As a side note, I really strongly recommend only listening to these songs with headphones (or I guess nice speakers). Since they’re primarily huge reason tracks, everything will sound over-modulated with regular computer speakers. Also, headphones are the only way I have to mix them, soooo that’s how they’re mixed!

Hahaha.

Clearly Not the One

I hope you don’t think I’m slacking (all two of you). I really am writing (ask Katie!) and working my butt off to get more songs completed, buttt a few things have come up to hinder my progress. I wrote a new song this week, but I lost my voice due to some sort of illness that will not leave me alone and I really didn’t want to post another song with no vocals that is supposed to have them. LUCKILY, last Monday I finally recorded vocals for a song I posted a month or so ago (then called Lover Lover Lover, now called Clearly Not the One). Phew.

I wrote the majority of the lyrics for this song a few years ago, when one of my best friends got mega-dumped after a 3ish year relationship. Recording the vocals from this was somewhat a challenge, as I’m not used to singing so fast, but it was obviously fun, considering all the “HIP”s, “HEY”s and “SHA”s (which are all dedicated to Ryan).

#2 (again): Clearly Not the One

Boy is it ever Sunday!

Excuses, excuses…

This week was a whirlwind of working, traveling and playing, so I didn’t get to write a really legit song. I didn’t actually intend to ever post this butttttttttt I got 2 b tru 2 myself. I’ve missed my obsession with odd time signatures lately, even though the more common odd signatures aren’t really odd to me anymore. There are no words for this song. I did try to write some, but I rather enjoy it like this. I sometimes have trouble writing bass lines. Is that my mind’s way of accidentally channeling Prince?? Yes.

I love you!

#9: Fifteen

Everything is Easy!

Why don’t I use more mellotron? I think I forgot it existed. I guess the format of this song is pretty traditional. It’s probably the first song I’ve ever written with no real bridge. I kind of didn’t really know what to do with it, so I didn’t really do anything with it? The lyrics are vaguely about what I believe (or I guess how I believe) vs how other people like me believe? I obviously have no idea. Something. I regret my use of the word “smiling” in the first verse. I think I just realized I don’t really like this song. Except for the mellotron.

….

Enjoy!

#8: Play

It’s Still Sunday!

Last week’s song adventure(!) left me with an unusually low level of songwriting motivation. Luckily, I’ve been sitting on the basic shell of this week’s song for a couple of years. After some major updates, the song doesn’t sound too far from something I would write now. For some reason I had a really difficult time getting good vocal takes, so sorry if they suck GET OVER IT.

Let’s see… this is the first song I’ve posted that was originally written on/for guitar. The lyrics are probably a metaphor for something and the title was an inside joke from my freshman year of college, but I have no recollection of what it meant (Max? I’m pretty sure you were there too…) And sorry to the people who have heard this before in various forms (Ryan, Jason [was there/helped when I wrote it], maybe Max), pretend it’s new for me.

#7: Deep Sea Issues

Uh, sometimes I watch really awesome television shows…. So, maybe it’s just because I’m a dude, but I think it’s hilarious that at the end of every Tool Academy (2!) episode (yeah, what are you gonna do about it??), all the Toolettes run like zombies up to the girl whose man got “expelled” to offer their comfort, no matter how much of a witch (or stripper) she is. I think that’s my favorite part of this show. Or all of TV ever.

Edit: Sam for the win!: “It’s still Sunday in Austin.”