Here’s a new tune. I wrote this one (and the next 4 new ones) on a plane in the air over the Midwest on my way to New Jersey.
It’s just a song. It’s the kind of song that gets me somewhere. I’m not there anymore and I’m moving away from here.
Tag Archives: music
New Song: Bury me in the sun
Yep, you got it…another make-up new song. Or, er…I guess these make-up songs are just becoming the weekly songs, or, uh…who’s even keeping track, right?
Anyway, this song was meant for the week of February 25th even though I started it on March 6. I swear I’ve got a tune that I started back in February that I’ll eventually finish. And I’ve got a couple songs that I’ve been working with the past couple days.
All of that is bound to get me back on track and just working on one new song and one re-recorded version of an old song each week. Instead of 20 new songs and re-recordings.
When I wrote this song it was going to be very different. I don’t even really remember exactly how it sounded, but I know the first time I sang the first set of words I wrote, it was not this.
The second time I sat down with it, it became some sort of sad downer of a gospel tune. That incarnation did not last too long.
I settled on this one. It’s based on the old Carter Family tune I Ain’t Gonna Work Tomorrow. Do you hear that in there? I sang it in a key that hurt my voice, but I think it sounds right to me. I was going to add some other noise to it…clapping and drumming and honking and wheezing, but after I listened to the playback a couple times I decided it already had all that and didn’t need any other tracks.
So there you have it. Be seeing ya.
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Rewritten Song: Mismanaged (version 2)
This week’s rewritten song is a little different. Most times I try to rework the music, and a lot of the time I rework the words for these re-recordings.
For this one, though, I did nothing. It’s exactly like the original.
Go listen to the first recording from 2011 and compare. You could even play them at the same time. That’d be interesting. I was just wondering…how has my voice changed in the past 2 years? How has the way I play guitar changed?
Or have I not changed at all.
My guess is I played this one pretty similar to back in 2011 because I really liked it back then. I had plans to perform it live but never did. I think because I never finished it. Always felt it needed a final verse to kind of tie everything together. Maybe that’s why I called it “Mismanaged.” I just didn’t do so well at getting around to putting any time into it.
Well, anyway, I added a final verse. So I guess it’s a little different than the first version. This also makes it different from other re-recordings in that you’ll need to listen all the way through the whole song to hear what’s different about it.
I wonder who’ll make it. I wonder who made it to even reading this paragraph.
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Rewritten Song: If you won’t be mine this time (don’t think you’ll get another try) (version 2)
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.
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New Song: Of all the things that frustrate me
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?
Music Vomit 