The Talkin’ Headline Blues is a weekly series of recordings using unedited headlines from CNN.com written as a song. This week’s topic: Weak Beers.
Bomb for ceremony in bag.
See emotional video.
Cold beers.
Weak woman.
Fake 18-foot nation.
Everything….
Here’s the last thing I’ll do in 2013. It’s a rewrite of this tune from 2011. I’m not sure if I improved on the original version. I really enjoy that one. I actually didn’t think I’d be able to re-write it at all. At first I just played around with time signatures to change up the recording, but kept the words all the same.
That didn’t work.
I settled on this right here. I’m fine with it. I enjoy it. It uses repetition, which is something I’ve found to be useful when writing songs. I figure out a pattern of how words or phrases or ideas can repeat over and over and then I fit different words into that. It gets easy the more you do it.
This recording is a great example of that. I finally found a musical pattern that sounded good to me and then I crammed all the words from the first version into that. Some words dropped out when I cut out what I didn’t need, but I think I kept the idea of the song the same.
Except that I turned it around to you. It’s not about me anymore. It’s yours now.
I’m going to do that a lot more in 2014. This new song every week thing is going to change a little bit. Instead of me just vomiting out all the songs I can, I’m going to explain how I get each one. IN DEPTH. I’m going to create some sort of How-To manual of songwriting. Like, How-To write a song every single day. It’ll be fun. I think.
I haven’t totally got it all straightened out yet, but it’ll just be a little different. You may not even notice.
So that’s what’s coming soon.
This new version of this old song from late-December 2011 is a little bit more honest, I think. Instead of putting it all on someone else, like the first version does, this new one sort of takes some ownership.
Sort of.
The narrator is still kind of a jerk because he’s unwilling to change. Still saying, “Well, this is how I am, and you’re going to have to accept me like that, cause I’m not going to try and be different.”
It’s a good thing I don’t write songs about myself. It’s a good thing. Yep. Sure is. This song is definitely not about me.
#MAJORBIGTIMEJERK
Also, I stole the melody from Johnny Cash’s tune “Let the Train Blow the Whistle.” It just happened to pop into my head while I was re-writing this one and it worked out pretty well. That’s an easy trick if you get stuck at songwriting. Just steal what someone else already did. NO ONE WILL KNOW.
Future poisoned!
Workers of jobs does WHAT?
Six make-or-break video
prostitution habits.
With shark,
this doctor dies.
The awkward love
gets what holiday?
Robots now
cut space rules.
Lost in death,
bandmate high.
Music Vomit 