Well, I tried a new melody for this version. It’s different. It’s borderline talkin’ blues, I’d say. Not sure on which side. But I think it adds to the hilarious headlines that people working for CNN.com actually wrote.
Or maybe robots write those?
But then who tells the robots what to write? And if no one tells them, how do they know what our events are? How is it that they’re so aware of our needs and desires that they know exactly what will evoke an emotion in us? Hmm….
I, for one, am getting on the side of these robots.
I wrote this one-liner on Saturday. Or Sunday. Whichever day I thought was the 20th on that day since I thought today was the 21st.
So I wrote it, then I added the “Hey hey!” and “Hey ho!” parts tonight. Feel free to join in on those sections. It’s fun! Shout it! Strain your throat. I did.
By the way: It surely is a hard thing to try and write and record one song every day, even if that song is only one line with a few words. It’s doubly hard when your throat seizes up due to allergies. Apologies to everyone this had any effect on.
Now, I tried and tried and tried to add several different harmony parts. But I have so little clue on how to add harmony parts.
Then I attempted some drums and a tambourine and even a small children’s xylophone. I thought that was a little much, though. It didn’t work anyhow.
So, I just duplicated the main guitar and vocal track a bunch of times, applied several canned effects, adjusted the volume settings, and wham-oh!
I realize it’s a little bit behind-the-times. A little bit, say, somewhere around 2007 or 1998 or 1987 or 1971 or 1952 or 1536. But, this is folk music that I’m doing. This is a folk song that I’m building one line at a time.
If you call what you do a folk song then you can do whatever you want. I’ve learned that over the years. It’s in the folk music manual.
Look it up.
When it comes right down to it, though, I just really like this line or this verse or how these words go together. The music is way less important.
It is in three-quarter time, though. And everything is better at that speed. Try it. Then you’ll understand.
Note: If you have more than the 2 minutes it takes to listen through the whole song once, I suggest listening at least twice. Once through speakers (computer, or otherwise) and then a second time through headphones. It’s different.
Here’s the newly re-recorded version of the song I wrote this week back in 2011. It’s quite different than the original (which you can listen to here), but there’s something I really like about this one.
I’m not so sure what, though.
This is a tune that I’ve sung out so many times I can barely remember what it’s all about. It also made it on to an officially released record. That version is slightly different than the original, but still pretty close. Check it out here.
So maybe that’s why I like this new version. The old one just kinda seems boring to me now. It’s probably why I basically rewrote the entire song too. But maybe also because the original is a very close relative of the Bob Dylan song “If You Gotta Go, Go Now (Or Else You Gotta Stay All Night). I almost admitted that in the original write up of this song. I alluded to “Lifting ideas from different places.” That’s what I meant by that. I didn’t use to tell anyone those type of things, but it’s how folk music works. Bob Dylan did it to Woody Guthrie, who did it to the Carter Family, who did it to the nameless and on and on in all different areas of music.
It happens. I’m okay with it.
Anyway…next up for this week is last week’s new song…which I have not written yet. But the snow and ice and slush have fallen and I’m not going anywhere for the night.
Here’s a song I wrote last night really late. Kept me up when I shoulda been fast asleep. Maybe I shoulda tried harder to shut my eyes. Oh well. This is what you get.
It’s in drop-d tuning and it’s vaguely like the old time song “Handsome Molly.” I even lifted some elements from that song and rewrote them a bit. I’ve done that about a million times. To Handsome Molly, and to so many other tunes too. It’s what I do. It’s just folk music. Pretty simple stuff.
Now I am going to bed tonight. This tune was the new song make up for the new song that I didn’t write the week of February 11, which means I’m almost all caught up. Just need to write a new tune for last week…and then, of course, one for this week and re-recorded the song I wrote this week in 2011.
So, in reality…no rest for me. Which is a good thing when you’re trying to write songs. The more you do it, the more songs you write, and the more songs you write, the more good songs you write.
Now, of course, it’s a lot of work, and not a whole lot of rest. The easiest thing to do is sit back and eat a whole bag of Cheetos. Or spend time looking up exactly how to spell Cheetos.
Either way you wake up the next morning with a full stomach, right?
But no hands were harmed in the recording of this tune. My vocal chords were, though. I just haven’t played mouth harp for, oh, about 4 months and it’s not a good thing to jump back into. Especially the reckless way that I play. But it’s my favorite instrument to play, so I don’t give a damn.
Now…how about this song? I think you should listen to it with headphones. Or, at the very least, something other than your laptop speakers. If you must, though, turn it up loud.
It’s a simple tune. I used a bunch of other train songs to write this one. They are, in no particular order:
900 miles (from my home)
Wabash Cannonball
The Cannonball Blues
Hobo’s Lullaby
Little Black Train
T is for Texas (that’s not a train song, necessarily, but it’s part of this one)
So there you have it. This new song is a make up for the week of February 4th, in which I did not write a single word. I think this is a good way to fill that void.
I’ve got another tune working too. Don’t know if I’ll get to it for tomorrow or not. It’s something I need to think about a lot. Something I’ve been thinking about a lot. But something I don’t want to have to think about at all. Something that hopefully I’ll just be able to pull right out of the air.
Music Vomit 