Category Archives: New Song

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Nothing Oughta Be Like Nothing (Part 4)

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Arrangement Week

I took the (somewhat) easy way out today. I was gonna be ambitious and play the fiddle for the fourth part of Nothing Oughta Be Like Nothing, and I did try, but Good God. I used to know a little bit of fiddle, but let’s just say, I saved yall from some serious pain.

So instead I played the mandolin. I’m by no means a good mandolin player, but I can at least strum the chords I need to strum and sing while I do it. There’s no bow involved. No rosin. No tuning fork. It’s all tuned the same, though…like an upsidedown guitar with four strings.

Anyway. I finished the song this afternoon. There’s no chorus. No bridge or extra part. It just is what it is. But it’s one I can really get behind. I usually don’t really get behind songs that take me a week to write…I guess I just worked harder on this one.

Tomorrow I’ll merge all the files together and we can hear what that sounds like. It’ll most likely be a big mess. On Saturday I’ll record an “official” version of the song and then it’ll be done and I’ll maybe start playing it out around town.

So, there ya go. Four days of the creative process or struggle or whatever ya call it.

Nothing is hard when you work hard and put in time.

Listen, New Song

Nothing Oughta Be Like Nothing (Part 3)

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Arrangement Week

Okay. I’m really putting myself out on a limb here today. I’m playing upright bass on this one. Upright bass looks like this:

Nothing oughta be as hard as playing upright bass with a blistered thumb.

I’ve had one of these for a while now, but I’ve never actually sat down to even try to play it. I guess I see it more as an accompanying instrument (even though that’s ridiculous because I love Charles Mingus.) Anyway, I took it down today and got a big old blister on my finger.

I finished the third verse this morning. It came to me pretty easily without a whole lot of wranglin. The hard part was singing it and playing the bass. This recording is probably the 5th or 6th take. Which means the 5th or 6th time I’ve played bass. I’m not apologizing, though, cause I like how it turned out. The melody of the song kinda gets lost in there cause I’m focusing so hard on the instrument playing and then the instrument playing gets fuzzy when I start focusing on the new verse. But, all-in-all, I think I did a fair job of holding it together.

I probably coulda played it a few more times and got it cleaner, but maybe not. My instrument track was actually turned off by accident on this recording, which is why the bass is kinda quiet. It still got picked up by the vocal condenser, though. But it’s small things like that which lead me to believe that I probably wouldn’t get it perfect without a couple hours of practice. But who wants perfection anyway.

So, the song is shaping up. I’ll work on one more verse for tomorrow. I’m still kinda hoping for a chorus, but now I kinda think that it doesn’t need one. The title is probably also gonna be Nothing Oughta Be Like Nothing. I just made that up right now.

See ya.

Listen, New Song

Nothing Oughta Be Like Nothing (Part 2)

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Arrangement Week

Next installment. Banjo. As you can tell I’m a really below-average banjo player, but I tried real hard and that’s half the battle.

I got the second verse of the song done today. I started it last night, but it came together nicely this afternoon. I’ll thank the Canadians for that. Them of the “if there’s no sign saying you can then you can’t.” As opposed to us Americans of the “if there’s no sign saying you can’t then you can.” I’m not saying one’s better then the other, I just needed one today more than the other.

So the second verse is done. I sung it over banjo. I rarely play banjo other than to pull it off the wall and strum it. I have no idea how to claw-hammer and I’ve never been to good at fingerpicking even on the guitar. But I gave it a whirl and I think it turned out okay.

I’m getting closer to a title. Maybe something like Oughta be like. But that feels unfinished. There’s definitely a repeating line, sort of, now. Maybe tomorrow a chorus will spring up.

I think probably on Friday I’ll put the whole song together, all the parts…layered…and I’ll post that.

Anyway, here’s a picture for all of ya that might be strugglin with gettin that next bit of creation out.

A wall oughta not stand in your way when creating.

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Nothing Oughta Be Like Nothing (Part 1)

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Arrangement Week

Okay. Here’s the deal. I’ve got a song in the works. It ain’t one of those that can just be written and done in 5 minutes. The first verse came out tonight like a dream and then the second verse kinda stalled and wiggled and wouldn’t break. So, this week, I’m gonna do a new verse each day, to this new song, which also does not yet have a title. I’ll call it Untitled Song Number 1.

I was also planning on changing instruments each day of this week, hence the week being called Arrangement Week. I’ll still attempt to do this. Maybe the challenge of a different thing in my hands each day will rattle some words out of me.

This new one is kinda shapin up to be like a lot of other new one’s I’ve written recently with a similar (or exact) repeating line instead of a good old chorus. The melody isn’t stolen from anything that I know of and I’m just apickin on the guitar.

I also don’t have any image to go with this post. This song is too new and too unfinished to have any idea what it’s about. So I’ll just go with this, it’s unfinished too:

Nothing is ever finished.

Listen, New Song

Only in America

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Songs About America Week

Since it was the Fourth of July on Sunday, this week is going to be songs all about the country the United States of America. The U.S.A. was established on July 4, I think. They don’t really teach those kind of things in school anymore, so I’m not sure.

Anyway. This week’s new song is called Only in America. I just wrote it tonight, about 30 minutes ago. I had no ideas this whole week. No songs written. I’ve been ferociously working on getting my 2 albums recorded and mixed. That’s my excuse. What’s yours.

Okay, so the song popped out in about 5 minutes or so because I was on deadline, I looked at the clock and it was about 10:15pm and I hadn’t picked up a guitar all weekend other than to play through a mistake-filled and drunken version of God Bless the USA and to install an under-saddle pickup in a guitar I’ll start using in Barehand Jugband shows. (On a side note, did you know that Woody Guthrie wrote This Land is Your Land in answer to God Bless the USA and that the original title and chrous was God Bless the USA for Me. I guess Woody didn’t like songs like God Bless the USA.)

So, I hadn’t played all weekend. Not since performing at the Gallery Cabaret open mike on Thursday. I played these songs: Brown-skinned Woman, I can’t help it, and I have no idea. I needed to try out some of my new songs (and still need to) because I’ve got some solo shows coming up in August. And I haven’t played a solo show in a real long time.

Okay. I wrote this song quick and got it done. I didn’t really know what I was going for. It kinda came out like a talkin’ blues song, which I used to write a lot of but don’t so much anymore. I was even just telling a close friend that I kinda worked my way through em and can’t write em anymore. Oh well. This song, though, is more of a talkin’ blues in the vein of Hank Williams, rather than Woody or, say, Bob Dylan. I’ll have to be honest that when a Hank Williams talkin’ blues song comes up on my radio I usually skip it. They’re really long and they’re usually about sitting by his dying mother’s bedside or about holdin his best gal close. But when I do listen to them I always really like them. He had a funny way of phrasing the lines and, regardless if he wrote them or not, a dry delivery that really emphasized the twist at the end of each verse.

That’s enough talkin’ though. Here’s the song. Hope ya like it. There’ll be more American songs, honoring America throughout the week. Here’s what America looks like on a map.

America, land of people who live there until someone bigger and badder comes along.