Category Archives: Talkin’ Headline Blues

The Talkin’ Headline Blues #7

Here’s the first installment of “Talkin’ Headline Tuesday.” The first of many. I’ll be doing one of these every week from here on out. So whatever’s in the news on Monday I’ll write into a song, record it Monday night, and post it here on Tuesday.

Simple enough, huh?

I won’t do a whole lot of writing about the songs, unless there’s something particularly interesting going on in the news (which there almost never is). If you want some background on where this song initially came from, or background on the talkin’ blues, you can check out these posts that I made a while back. There’s a few pages of songs and writing. Go ahead, have a read and take a listen.

That’s it. Come back on Thursday, though, cause I’ll be posting a re-recorded version of the song I wrote new and posted one year ago this week. It’s gonna be exciting. Very, very exciting. I’m excited.

The Talkin’ Headline Blues #1-5 (Combined)

Okay. I forgot to post the compilation of all five versions of Talkin’ Headline on Saturday. So, here it is today. It’s basically a new song. Indistinguishable from anything else.

The new song for this week will be coming. I’ll be working on it today. So look for it tomorrow.

This compilation, though, is pretty interesting, I think. It’s how my brain felt at the end of the week after reading so many headlines and not any substance of any news items. This should probably be the theme song for this whole blog. It’s absolute vomit.

There are a couple things I like. Occasionally the repeating chorus lines sync up in the different versions, and that’s pretty wild. Especially since all the versions are in different keys. Also, the mouth harp is basically going throughout the whole song and has a sort of sinister sound going.

Then the end clears up really well. It’s like waking up after a really heavy dream.

Hope ya like it.

The Talkin’ Headline Blues #5

Here’s the 5th, and final (or final until I play this song out and have to write a new version based on what’s going on) version of Talkin’ Headline.

By Thursday it’s pretty easy to see that news organizations start to run out of things to report. Some headlines start to repeat, or are rewritten to seem relevant. Really, all the news happens over the weekend. Or, more likely, is saved up through the weekend and then reported on Monday morning so that all the readers have something to stare at when they get to work.

This also has the effect to give an audience a little bit on Monday and make them need to come back each day of the week to check in on the progress of the story they read at the beginning of the week. Everyone needs closure.

And then, maybe, you click on a link of advertising or two and everyone gets exactly what they set out to get. A little bit of money and a little bit of time gone by and spent.

So that’s it for this week. I think it went pretty well. It’s easy to write songs when ya got so much material to choose from. Tomorrow I’ll post a summary of all the songs. It’ll be a great expression of how it felt sifting through so much news in one week. Of how my brain feels after all that.

So be sure to check back on Saturday.

The Talkin’ Headline Blues #4

Day number 4 in the string of talkin’ blues songs. This one, though, is more of an I Shall Be Free-type tune than a true talkin’ blues, but I don’t think anyone really knows the difference, so it don’t matter.

The headlines again came off of cnn.com. See how ridiculous it is to try and follow the news? I’ve heard too many people say recently that they “just read the headlines” or “skim through headlines and online articles.” How is anyone actually aware of anything?

I know I’m not.

Feels like the world is outta control, spinning wildly with every person on it spinning wildly doing crazy things. There’s no one normal. No one easy. No one free.

Okay, that’s enough of that. Stay tuned for tomorrow’s version and then be sure to come back on Saturday. I’m gonna compile all 5 versions into one big stewing pot to give a good idea of what it was like to try and write songs out of headlines each day.