#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

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)

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

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:

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.

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

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.

It is about everything. And nothing.

(Mostly nothing.)

#24: Everything and Nothing

…

I hope you love it!!!

• I love writing music
• It’s not fair that only black people and country singers are allowed to sing about God and still be in the “secular” music business

90% of the time I hear about Christianity in the news it’s negative. For every time I hear about a pastor having an affair, being ostracized for expressing unorthodox beliefs or losing his church for coming out of the closet, I hear exactly zero positive stories to balance them. Why is this? Recently, theres been a lot of accusations towards Christians in general for not supporting gay rights, mostly in light of the recent suicides of a number of young people. I’m not going to get all political and I kind of don’t care where anyone stands on the issue (of gay rights, not the suicides), but it breaks my heart that the world views Christians as the exact opposite of what they’re called to be. Are we?

I’ve been trying to follow the debate with the help of some of my close friends (who happen to be gay). In a string of comments I was reading last week, I came across this little nugget: “make love, not god.” Never have I wanted to curl up and die more than when I read that. Is this really how Christ and his followers are viewed? In a lot of ways, Christians aren’t helping themselves. There are some Christians who are real assholes. That can be said of any group, but it seems like Christians get more shit for it because there’s more expected of them, and rightfully so. But I want to give a voice to the rest of them – what I hope is the majority. The Christians who will love unconditionally, without regard for race or religion or gender or sexual preference.

I hear this quote a lot in churches, “There is nothing you can do to make God love you any more, and there’s nothing you can do to make him love you any less.” Unless you’re gay? Unless you’re Calvinist? Unless you haven’t read a bible in six years? Unless you don’t believe in hell? Unless you’re Hindu? Unless you don’t believe any God exists at all? Where’s the line? Is there a line? As far as I can tell, that quote is true for everyone. “All souls are mine.” Or… If two of your chickens is gay, thems your gay chickens.

I don’t know the details of all this stuff, but I do know that God is love, and that if I didn’t know God the way I do, I wouldn’t know how to love the way I do. Not to say that I’m some kind of superhero, but I really genuinely love people (despite how much I can hate them sometimes) and I really hope I come across that way.

Oh, is this a music blog? My bad. This song deals with a lot of what I just talked about. Partly accusing those Christians who are under the gun without trying to sound too accusatory. Partly sympathizing with confused, hurt teens and young adults. I know how hard growing up can be. It gets better (even the president says so). Mostly pointing to where I know true love and peace are found.

#23: Two Streets

And it don’t stop. I posted last week’s song with no real explanation because I wanted it to be posted before the end of Sunday (FOUR WEEKS IN A ROW BITCHEZZZZ [and make it FIVE]), but oh, there’s an explanation. One that the three people who look at this blog will see. Most people know that I struggled with some bizarre form of anorexia for a few years in and after college. It ended up being less emotionally based and more about how I felt physically when I ate, but it took a long time and a lot of confusion to figure that out. The whole Marie Claire thing really got me thinking about it again, and while I haven’t “struggled with it” in a long time, it was the first time I’d let myself get in depth about it in a few years. And that, as they say, is that.

Oh, and about point two… this song is decidedly “more Christian” than my other songs, and I think it’s bullshit that lyrics like this are off limits for indie and rock musicians. So suck it, haters.

I have one minute until tomorrow and I’m not about to break my streak, so BAM:

#22: Ana vs The Ocean Pt II