Where You Can Go: "it was a pleasure to burn" production diary

Ever had an unhealthy obsession? One that you would follow the ends of the Earth just to stop off the edge? 'Fess up, we all have. "Where You Can Go" is the next track for my album-in-progress it was a pleasure to burn. She was written for a January Song Fight! Like any good, fiery obsession, I begged, borrowed and stole to make her what she is; this essay is my post-modern musical mea culpa.

 Picture by zetson: www.flickr.com/photos/zetson/

oh i look for wisdom
in every word you say
but there is only madness
when you lead me astray
you don't really mean it
your intentions never cruel
but you are made of matches
i am made of fuel

wherever you can go
whatever you may need
whatever you may want
however high the fee

my good friend leo tolstoy
wrote of anna based on me
he said you gotta be perfect
he said you gotta be free
and chuck bent over backwards
that soused up albatross
well, he said much the same thing:
steal away from loss

wither thou would go
i will follow; i am blind
however hard the blow
these are the ties that grind

wither thou would go
i will cleave to thee
however hard the blow
however deep the sea

Songs usually have a specific flash-point for me. "Where You Can Go" was a combination of a cool bass line and my songwriting surroundings. For the guitar riff and overall feel of the song, my main inspiration was the Toadie's "Possum Kingdom."

Turns out that for the bass line I stumbled upon Midnight Oil's riff in "Beds are Burning."

Hey, if you're going to unintentionally rip something off, make it something good!

When not humming to myself on my scooter ride home, I do most of my songwriting in my library. For this tune, all I had to do was turn my head to the left:

Yes, that's Tolstoy's Anna Karenina wedged at the end of all that Tolkein. Anna and her unhappy marriage; Anna and her fatal obsession with sex, happiness and freedom. Since my mind works my association, I lept from there to the Book of Ruth and Ruth's devotion to her mother-in-law, Naomi. Ruth has one of my favorite lines from anything, "Wither thou goest, I will cleave to thee." I love that mixed implication of love and violence. Finally, no post-modern mash-up of mine would be complete without some reference to Charles Baudelaire's Albatross, that melancholic raison d'être for poets. This is more than just a pedantic assortment of borrowings: they come together to highlight the desperate longing that I want to express.

Since this song debuted at Song Fight! I was able to receive some constructive criticism. Originally, the verses were flipped: I opened with the "Leo Tolstoy" line. Many reviews noted "This is a rock song; why are you opening with classic literature?!" Well, the references stay, because they are the heart of the lyric for me and I enjoy the contrast of Pop and "High" culture. However, such a specific reference, especially right out of the gate, can be limiting. The second verse is equally strong, so I decided to lead with that for this new version.

This song always wanted a guitar solo to round out the composition and make it fit better in the rock genre I'm using. I have the hardest time composing solos, which are always more about tone and rhythm than melody. I probably spent more time writing that simple line than the lyrics. Lyrics are easy more me; interesting melodies - no matter the instrument - are hard.

This is one of the few songs I've written with a prechorus. Songwriting competitions have taught me to get to the good part of your tune and don't meander about with the unnecessary. But I've been stretching my composition muscles lately, and from the beginning I knew that I wanted something of anti-chorus, just a pure vocal melody. (Also, Nirvana's "Lithium" is awesome - and there's another thing I've stolen.)

I promised up-tempo songs last week, and Panacea certainly delivered. Technically, "Where You Can Go" is only 104 bpm, but it's much more intense, darker and rocking than the other songs I've finished so far. Plus, it was a good break from the tumultuous time that was recording "Panacea."

Plenty more to come! For the next offerings, I'm planning to head to Atlanta (I wrote a song about Whitney Houston, how weird is that?) and other things southern (Tom Petty stopped by with a guest lyricist).

Panacea: "it was a pleasure to burn" production diary

The story of "Panacea" comes from all over the place. But her recording process was a lesson in rhythm and just letting things flow.

From Wikimedia Commons

I wrote this song for FAWM this year (and for the curious, here's the demo). I have a hard time writing "happy" songs; I guess I take myself too seriously. But "Panacea" was one of those tunes that sneaks up on you and goes "Surprise! Take me home!" This is literally what happened; the first few lines and the melody came to me as I strapped on my helmet to ride home. I had to sing to myself the whole way so I didn't forget.


she sits all day in the sun
she's in love with everyone
she plays out in the rain
she's the cure for all of your pain

panacea
i see you

her smile can melt the clouds
her song can draw a crowd
catch a glance from her emerald eyes
watch her soar through azure skies

panacea
i see you

she's everyone's darling starling
when the sunset is drawing near
from her strawberry throne
she always goes home alone

panacea
i see you

Originally, I was drawing from the Indigo Girls, especially their early simple stuff like you can hear on 1200 Curfews. Hence the doubled vox and the bare acoustic guitar. But after cutting the quick demo during FAWM, things changed.

I was always happy with "Panacea," and it was easy to put her on the short list for the new album. While planning the full-fledged recording, I had an epiphany in the shower one morning: she's in 6/4 time. Not 3/4 time, not 6/8 and certainly not the much more popular 4/4. 6/4. It make percussion a conundrum. What does 6/4 sound like? Is there a back-beat? Is the downbeat on 1 and 3? Does it split 4 and 2 (or 2 and 4)? It doesn't help that EZDrummer doesn't have 6/4 samples.

Enter a new songwriting touchstone. I recently discovered Pearl and the Beard, and marveled at their lush vocal harmonies and unconventional instrumentation. For a long time I've planned to record a song in their style, and after one false start, I believe I managed it here. The key, actually, is the wonderful stomps and claps like in Douglas Douglass. (And so, it turns out, there is a back-beat!) It also turns out that if you tweak pre-programmed 6/8 beats, they work pretty well, especially at 160 bpm.

That's right: one hundred and sixty beats per minute. I think this is the fastest song I've ever recorded. It's also one of the most fun, and one whose recording took me to neat and unexpected places once I let it. After the weird time signature, the biggest obstacle was actually the acoustic guitar part. It's fast; too fast, it turns out, for me to strum with a pick. This is important, because recording a clean, clear finger-strummed part is hard. I fought and cried and swore, but in the end, that bloody rhythm won out. Finger strummed in full up-tempo glory. (There's all kinds of mic positioning and EQ to get that lovely tone, if you need to know.) In the midst of my guitar battle, weird and wonderful things happened. My organ tone showed up and wanted to play. A bouncy little bass line grooved its way into the chorus, but insisted on being demure for the verse. I fiddled an diddled with those turn-arounds, and the fake ending was a fluke that made me go "Ooh, nice! That stays."

In the end, the odd collection of disparate parts has come together in wonderful way. "Panacea" part folk ode, part hip-hop sampling and part Brookly hipster groove. Whatever she is, she makes me happy. I hope you enjoy!

Occupy My Heart: "it was a pleasure to burn" production diary

"Occupy My Heart" was written for a November 2011 Song Fight! She's evolved significantly since her inception and, for me, has become as a study in songwriting concision and making choices that serve the song and not an arbitrary set of goals.

Late October/early November last year was was a high-tide moment for the Occupy Movement. In typical Song Fight! snark, the Fightmasters gave us the chance to be topical, personal or both. The latest version is significantly different from my original.


there ain't no permits needed
no one's wearin' riot gear
i don't have a sign to wave
i just want you here
but i'll take your red tent cities
i'll take your 99
i'll take your white-hot anger
i just want your hand in mine

and it's funny cuz you're next to me
but we're a long time apart
come on over, the space is free
why don't you occupy my heart

the world is going down (in flames!)
and i spend my nights alone (drinkin' whislkey!)
there may be a body there
but you are long, long gone
come back for the revolution
come back and sing along
come back for the retribution
come back - i was wrong

and it's funny cuz you're next to me
but we're a long time apart
come on over, the space is free
why don't you occupy my heart

I was always satisfied with the concept behind this tune, which allowed me to both be topical and craft a personalized twist on the politics of the moment. The simple but fun guitar riff forms a great foundation, and I get the chance to break out my slide guitar obsession again. However, at the time, I was seeking to challenge myself as a songwriter and singer, so the Song Fight! submission had several elements that I've removed or rearranged. In the end, I decided they were present because I wanted something that seemed sophisticated and unconventional; they didn't serve the song best.

There are two major structural changes. The first draft had a bridge:

i've been drinkin' these long nights
drinkin' whiskey all alone
drinkin' down to the bottom of my soul
i don't know what's got you so riled
but i know it' was wrong of me to say
"wait a while"

But the melody isn't all that different from the verse, and it basically says the same thing as the second verse but with less poetry. I ditched the singing for a break-down section that let me do some minimalist guitar noodling. Also, while the basic guitar vamp is pretty nifty, the best part of this song is the chorus. So, why not lead with that, giving me a chance to highlight that slide riff? Besides, it starts the song on an upbeat note instead of a typical low-key intro section.

Overall, the first draft is busier and (overly) energetic. The slide guitar has an overblown delay effect that chews up real-estate, and there's my favorite organ tone again, adding a nifty back-beat emphasis to the chorus. The vocals are hotter, more desperate and simply more fragile.

Still, those harmonies with the background vox are pretty cool. Those stayed, but for the remix, I went in with the mantra that less is more. I pulled back the desperation of the vocal performance for a more resigned feeling that played to my strengths rather than challenge them with few dividends. I removed the organ entirely; it worked, but not completely, and I have plenty of other tunes that feature it in more interesting ways. It's replaced with a MIDI harmonica bit that feels more appropriate to the country-blues genre I'm evoking.

What remains after the gutting and transformation of the original tune is something a lot less ambitious, but more direct and engaging. I was able to nail the conflicted melancholy of the protagonist more effectively, and I'm rather proud of the lead guitar parts since my proficiency with such things is rather limited.

With these first three entries, there's been a distinct laid-back country vibe. It's the running theme for it was a pleasure to burn, but I don't want to fall into that trap where each song on an album sounds too similar. Next week, I'll shake things up with a few up-tempo offerings from this year's FAWM.

Gravity: "it was a pleasure to burn" production diary

These past two days, I've been visiting with an old friend: "Gravity." I wrote this song for swim for shore, an album I released in Fall, 2008.

There's so much that I like about "Gravity" that I wanted to revisit it, tighten up my vocal performance and give it a fuller production.

Here's the original recording:

And here's the version I just finished:

the world has come together

the world will fly apart
seeking dreams we chase the shadow
that lies within our heart
word for word I know the story
the tales in colors stark
down the path unknowing known
we stumble in the dark

and your gravity
how it pulls at me
does my gravity
pull you free

in orbit round we circle
this azure mass untamed
the heavens all a-singing
our passions all aflame
oh supplications muted
we strain to hear the tune
that single chord we have forgot
that rest we left too soon

and your gravity
how it pulls at me
does my gravity
pull you free

what have you forsaken?
my god e'er lost in pain
suffer long the quiet aching
and listen to the rain
blood will wash our misdirection
as it falls upon the ground
we are now all pulled together
by one divine sound

and your gravity
how it pulls at me
does my gravity
pull you free

Lyrically, I was inspired (and continue to be) by the work of Leonard Cohen, the way that he blends Judeo-Christian imagery with longing and Existentialism. I also have a long-standing fascination with physics and the way that our mathematical understanding about the universe can serve as a metaphor for how we relate to each other as flesh-and-blood human beings. The changes I made in the new version are pretty minor; I tweaked a few words, especially in the chorus for variety. But I was always happy with the core of this song.

The chord progression in the verse is somewhat symmetrical:

the [C#m] world has [E] come [B] together
the [C#m] world will [E] fly [A] apart
[C#m] seeking [E] dreams we [A] chase the shadow
that [C#m] lies with [E] in our [B] heart

This was tricky to record since I prefer cyclical patterns, like in the chorus (a simple F# - Emaj9 - B). The whole thing is capo'd on the fourth fret, so these fancy chords are actually pretty simple: Am - C - G (or F) for the verse and D - Cmaj9 - G for the chorus.

I'm a sucker for slide guitar and definitely wanted to keep that slinky lead, but decided for a new intro that is more dynamic and even a little mysterious. After losing my old slide in New York last year, I finally cracked and picked up a new one. It sounds so much better than the cigarette lighters I've used in the meantime.

In the original recording, I achieved that lovely distorted organ sound with a Shadow acoustic pickup, kind of like this one, and then ran the output through Florida Music Company's free TubeAmp VST plug-in. It was a neat trick, since I was able to record the same performance: one input from the pick up, another from a USB microphone. TubeAmp returns in the new recording, still processing the overdriven guitar in the chorus. But that's my trusty ESP Ltd electric guitar now, and it's doubly overdriven, since I record through a Line 6 Pod UX1 and use a great preset I've dubbed "Prince Corvette power chords."

Since 2008, I've accrued several tools beyond the Pod UX1. The most important are a pair of GLS Audio microphones, but the toy I'm really excited about is EZDrummer. I'm still learning the finer points of this program, but it has made creating engaging, dynamic percussion so much easier than before, when I was programming every last hit by hand with leafDrums. (You can hear a leafDrums composition on "Only You Behind," the subject of Entry the First of this production diary, and on the original recording of "Gravity" as well.) I've always struggled with fills and simple-but-interesting drum parts and now EZDrummer's vast library of samples gives me all sorts of great-sounding bits. Plus, tweaking the samples is a piece of cake; just crack open the MIDI editor in my DAW (I use REAPER) and add the touches I need or shave the bits I don't want.

The other newcomer is MDA's ePiano VSTi, which sounds nothing a piano, but produces a fabulous organ tone that I then ran through an string ensemble pad effect from DaSample's GlaceVerb. That's the wonderful glow in the background.

There must be something about the keys of E and B, because I've always felt very comfortable singing this melody, even as it stretches my limited, low range. Recording this, I tried a new method, placing the microphone higher than my nose-line, forcing me to sing upwards. It made achieving strong, clear notes a lot easier. I still have a funny stance with my right leg way out in front, like I'm getting ready to run or attack someone, but that's my "energy stance." It works.

Interestingly, the new version of "Gravity" is one of my most populated. Most of my songs have eight to ten individual tracks. "Gravity" has sixteen! Some of them are very small: a few bars for those organ crescendos or the third verse backing vocals. Still, there are many elements and it was a challenge to blend them all appropriately. I'm very satisfied with the end-product, which has a full texture but manages to highlight different parts as needed.

Looking at this entry, there was a lot of recording technique at play, more than I normally employ. Because "Gravity" was such a set part of my repertoire, I think that I was able to focus on that aspect of song-craft. Thanks for coming along! Follow, bookmark, what-have-you, there's plenty more to come!

Only You Behind: "it was a pleasure to burn" production diary

It's time to dust off this empty loft, wipe away the cobwebs, open the windows and fill it again. It's also time to compile my annual anthology of songwriting. Two birds; one stone: I'd like to invite you on a journey down a country road towards my latest album it was a pleasure to burn. I've been prepping and simmering this idea for a while, as songs have accrued since last September. At the moment things are kind of a mess: some of the tunes are nearly complete while some of them just need to be tweaked; others need a completely new pass or to be recorded at all! (And one zygote of a song needs a lot more gestation, but she's a fighter so I think she'll be fine.)

Art courtesy of Denise Hudson's nephew.

I plan on working on this project most weekdays, and every time there's progress I'll share a bit of something with you. And not just the music, but the story, too. Basically, this is blog will be a kind of ever-evolving set of liner notes. Pay attention to the man behind the curtain: he's gesturing for you to come inside...

"Only You Behind" is one of those "nearly complete" songs, and it's evolved to be something of the cornerstone of this album: a kind of contemplative, bitter-sweet journey.

here's the back road i have been walking
and it never seems to end
twists and turns 'round mountains and valleys
like a lover folds to river bends
takes me on past lone empty diners
through vast desserts and plains
leads me deep into accented bayous
'long tracks saggin' with trains

and i don't know what it is
thought i left you far behind
that same old dream again
you're always on my mind

here's the last station where we once parted
its hollow and wind-swept seats
vaulted ceilings echo whispers of lovers
salted windows count their heartbeats
the platform is for entrances & exits
each of us has their part
but i don't 'spect much for applause
another another day, another broken heart

and i don't know what it is
when the train don't arrive on time
that same old dream again
you're always on my mind

here is a trail of storms and forgetting
high in the mountain range
watch the clouds kiss the peaks like a lover
hear the thunder sing my pain
feel the rain wash away all my sins
cleanse the earth, cleanse my soul
feel the wind dry all my tears
let this hollow make me whole

and i don't really understand
the rain has left only you behind
your phantom come again
why are you always on my mind

a burning serpent of asphalt and tar
human hubris baked in black

Many of my songs are written with a clear outside prompt: a title from Song Fight! a challenge from SpinTunes or just the pressure to produce for FAWM. Not so for "only you behind"; she came unbidden to the guitar, as I channeled as much Johnny Cash and Hank Williams, Senior as possible. I lifted the lick from a guitar method book, but it fit with the simplicity of the message and journey I wanted to take. At the time, I was specifically challenging myself to stretch the length of my melodic lines, and I believe I succeeded, though there isn't a lot of tonal variation. It's almost a country rap, but it still works, and there's a long tradition of this style anyway. Since I wasn't forging new musical ground, I wanted to emphasize the lyric, and especially metaphor, pulling from the Romantics and my adolescence in the Blue Ridge of the Shenandoah Valley.

As for the composition, I'm most proud of the drum track, of all things. For quite a while now, I've been poking about looking for a way to make my drum programming sound more natural and interesting. These drums are messy: I've manually tweaked hits to be off by a few fractions of a second here and there. And it sounds pretty good. Which actually poses a small problem for the album as a whole: I've recently purchased EZDrummer and it's far and away a better tool than my old drum program. So, I may revisit the percussion or I may just leave it be.

I don't normally slather on sound effects, but the thunderstorm seemed a logical touch. The midi violin... that may be first on the chopping block, but I want something unconventional to pop music while natural to the folk/country vibe I have here. Any violin players out there?

While this is a prominent song at the moment, I'm not sure that it's the album leader. In fact, its laid-back feel and rather lush instrumentation may make it a better closer. Sequencing is one of the last steps in making an album, so we'll just let that simmer.

Entry the First now draws to a close. Stay tuned; follow; bookmark: any of those things because there's lots more to come.

SpinTunes: Hey, Joe

The challenge for the second round of SpinTunes 4 was pretty straight-foward: write a Valentines' Day card for someone other than your significant other. That suited me just fine: I actually find it hard to write about my wife (though I have done so on a few occasions), and this challenge allowed me some welcome creative freedom with just the right amount of boundaries to get the juices flowing. I read the challenge first thing last Monday morning with a big cup of coffee in my hand and it was a "Eureka!" moment. (Well, in my early morning, pre-coffee haze more like: "Hmmmm... *look at coffee cup* Yup.")

Two things off the bat:

1. Please listen to the whole album. There is some fantastic stuff here. Brand new, and totally free. (I'm number 8 in the queue).
2. Please go vote for your favorites (and mine, too!) over on the SpinTunes blog. The popular vote counts like a judge, so your voice is important.

Right, on with the show. For lyrics, beyond the condition of writing an ode (of sorts) that was not for my wife, I set myself the additional condition of not writing about a tryst, because that seemed facile. Coffee is something that I could pour myself into, so I set a third condition: don't mention the word "coffee." I like things that are discrete about their subject matter; and it's a good exercise in craft to make a clear description without naming a thing overtly.

It's often part of my creative process to have a touchstone for inspiration and reference. This tune has several. My primary reference for lyrics was an essay called "The Pleasures and Pains of Coffee," by the 19th-century realist Honoré de Balzac. This dude knew his stuff. (Side note as a French professor: the English translation is annoyingly edited, cobbled together from a much longer piece that's just as interesting, called the Traité des excitants modernes.) But I digress. Yes, I stole the "coffee roasts my insides" from Balzac.

wake [D] up, get out of bed
[Am] have a cup and [C] tilt your head
[G] [F]
take a [Am] sip, another one
 [C] sugar, cream: your [D] motor runs

hey [D] joe, i am [Am] awake now
you have [C] my vow, [G] thank you friend
hey joe, what is this feeling
my fingers tingling
i think i love you

after lunch, another cup
caffeine always help me sup
take it black with a smoke
gotta to keep my fires stoked

hey joe, you are my bright star
you warm my heart every day
hey joe, you roast my insides
you make my eyes bright
i think i love you

[G] i feel i am floating
[F#] i feel i am flying
[Em] i feel i am letting go
in the air soaring
upon the waves crashing
oh will you help me joe

hey joe, don't want no mocha
no chai latte, just grind it fine
hey joe, this fine aroma
it transports me,
you're all mine

Musically, I had the second half of the Beatles' "A Day in the Life" in my head for some reason. I purposefully didn't listen to the song before writing and recording, relying upon the haze of my memory to give me enough distance. I'm no John Lennon, to be sure, but I'm quite happy with the way things turned out.

I have to admit, dealing with the piano part was a pain. Firstly, I don't have a keyboard; that's all programmed with the REAPER MIDI interface. Secondly, for a long time, I had the parts reversed: the chorus was the verse. While that matched my memory of the verse from "A Day in the Life" a little better, it didn't work with the melody I had crafted. Once I swapped the parts, things went better, and when I changed the verse piano to a combo organ and synthesizer, it went much better. I'm really proud of the change in chord progression in the verse; I'm packing a lot of variation into not much space (well, for me) and that keeps it interesting.

I took a note from the Beatles as well for mixing, making the unconventional George Martin choice of hard-panning the drums and bass to one side and the guitars to the other (left and write, respectively.) I fiddled a little with the organ and piano parts, because that's where they sounded best, and chucked everything out for the bridge, using dynamic panning to introduction a sense of auditory delirium. It's a non-standard mixing choice, and so that can throw people off, but I think it works well for this tune, giving the whole thing space to breath. You really can pick out each part, which is something that I love about much of the Beatles' stuff.

Let's talk structure. I took a bit of inspiration from the previous round and went for a series of tempo changes: 132 bpm for the verse, 144 for the chorus, and 80 for the bridge. Still, there's the illusion of more variation with the constant breaks in the verse. I really wanted that part to have the Beatlesque vocal "Aaaaaah - aaaaaah," but I cannot sing like that, much less craft a similar harmony. So, I let the guitars do it for me. (Post-submission, I had the idea that the break leading into the chorus should go up from G to A instead of down to F. Ah well, noted for the remix.)

The bridge comes from an early version of the song that was inspired by French comic songwriters Oldelaf and Monsieur D., "Un p'tit café?"

I originally had the narrator going crazy, coming home and murdering his family as a proof of his devotion to Joe. It was a too dark for a light-hearted love song. And having a constant tempo increase would have been too much a direct rip of Oldelaf's and Monsieur D's genius.

One thing that I was not referencing - for some reason - was the 50's / 60's rock standard "Hey Joe," perhaps most famously covered by Jimi Hendrix. I only ran across this when Googling album art for my Bandcamp page. [/shameless plug]

FAWM 2012: Week 1

On top of Song Fight! and SpinTunes, I enjoy participating in February Album Writing Month. Each of these organizations / challenges has its own distinct atmosphere. Song Fight! is heavy on the criticism, but frequently in a very constructive way, and there's a lot of buy-in from the entire community to keep things going and continually improve things. SpinTunes, despite being a more focused songwriting competition, has a much more laid-back and convivial feel to the interactions. It's held rather infrequently, but there's a pretty solid core of people who regularly participate as either judges or contestants.

FAWM is something else entirely. If Song Fight! is a perpetual songwriting workshop, and SpinTunes is a Battle of the Bands, FAWM is a giant block party. It reminds me of la Fête de la musique, with everybody playing every which way, what, where and how. The point isn't to craft great songs and hone your skills. It's just to get 14 songs written during the shortest month of the year.

You heard me right: 14 songs in 28 days. It's no small feat. In fact, I've never done it. Last year I think I hit ten, but only had nine recordings. 2010 only got three or four. Nonetheless, it's a great exercise in just getting it done and out there.

So, this the attitude I'm taking this year: write the damn tune, slap it down in demo form and move on to the next. Focus on the bigger pictures - melody, lyric, structure, narrative - instead of the minutiae of a killer drum track or building a third guitar part for the chorus. Attention to the immediate and the particular; I'll come back to the gems and refine them for an album over the some - probably Mayish.

You can visit my FAWM page here. I'll also be posting my demos on Bandcamp, just I can use the handy embedded playlist and you can listen to them right here:

It's the evening of February 2 as I write this, and that means I've completed two brand new songs in as many days. That's pretty damn good, if I do say so myself. (Mind you, I'm going to be busy over the long weekend, so that ratio's going to drop off mighty quick.) But let's savor the moment and talk a little about these tunes.

All Swear About Murder
"All swear about murder" was a typo on a Google+ post many months ago. It was just too good of a phrase to let go, so I plunked it down in Evernote and since then it's been steadily accruing companions from various places, though I must admit that Denise Hudson consistently turns a pretty phrase and I pilfer her disjecta with gusto. I started this with the clear intention never to mention the word murder, and I enjoy the ambiguity of what being "all swear" means. It's a flashback episode, too, starting at the end of the story, with a little plot twist at the end of Act One. When writing the prechorus, I decided the first line was just too good. Rather than jam it into a chorus, I just ditched the idea altogether. Chorus no; bridge, yes. The first line and the entire general grove of the bridge is actually ripped from a cover of a song by The Books that I did for Gift of Music this year, "A Cold Freezin' Night." I liked being able to the turn the original lyric on its head.

Panacea
For some reason, it's really, really hard for me to write happy songs. I take myself too seriously, and I appreciate how much craft it takes to be funny. Being tragic is easier. So, I was delighted when a rather happy little ditty popped into my head on the way home this afternoon. Maybe it was the sunshine after days of rain. Maybe it was the car exhaust as I putted about on my scooter. Maybe Euterpe just had a caprice. Whatever, I took the idea and ran with it, keeping things as simple as possible: straight I - V - IV verse and few 7ths and 9ths for chorus. The doubled vocal track was a last-minute addition; i rather like it, but it'll take some serious honing in revisions. I waffled a lot about having a bridge. The 3rd verse was originally a bridge, but I didn't have anything more to say, and the melody wasn't all that different anyway. (Actually, the verse chord progression was going to be only for the bridge, but it was too good.)