The Weekly Song

Week 19 - On Our Way

I'm just gonna come out and say it.  I think this song is awesome.  I think the production is pretty tight and I think the song itself has the potential to actually make people feel good (like a real pop song) not depressed and/or hopeless (like a typical Stellini song).

Part of the reason for why I'm so in love with this week's song is that in came from a pretty happy place, and if you've ever written a song, you know just how hard writing from that place can be.  So, this song basically saved me from having to start an unnecessary fight with my boyfriend to churn something out this week.  I susupect this is the reason why he digs it so much too. 

Special thanks this week goes to Mr. Jesse Pagano for adding to my swirly-bendy-swirly solo section with a neat little slide guitar part.  There are three lead parts in that solo section - 2 guitars (one of which sporting a pretty normal guitar sound, the other being Jesse's tripped out slide guitar), and the third is something else.  I want you to guess what it is.  Free cupcake for the first correct guess!

If the SoundCloud player isn't loading
DOWNLOAD THIS WEEK'S SONG HERE
On a Mac: Ctrl+click and choose "Save Linked File As..."
On a PC: right click and choose "Save Target As..."

lyrics
watching you breathe and i'm not afraid
of feeling like this is
what i've always wanted, well, since i cold say,
'i'm feeling like this is
never gonna happen to me'
can it really happen with you?
watch you sink to a higher place

leaving the answer
on your lazy smile
i believe it when you say you wanna take me away
to no particular place
i believe it so i sing it and we're on our way

keep falling over in a different way
feeling like this is
standing up, walking into the wake
of feeling like this was
never gonna happen to me
is it gonna happen with you?
watch you float to a deeper place

leaving the answer
on your fading smile
i believe it when you say you wanna take me away
to no particular place
i believe it so i sing it and we're on our way

Week 14 - Flu Not a Heart Attack

Since I started this project (and proceeded to write nearly a dozen songs about one single boy*) Angela Bowers and I have been joking about needing a quarterly boy about whom to write these weekly songs. 

Be careful what you wish for.

This is another one of those songs that I put together out of a bunch of ramblings that made no sense at the time, but hang together in a way that is rather illuminating. (if knowing more about my psyche can be classified as illuminating in any way to anyone but me).

I think it's about falling for somoene, or more accurately, meeting someone you think you could fall for and then deciding it's probably best not to.

Thanks this week goes to Christopher Plummer and Ms. Bowers (the latter for lending her much needed and oft-appreciated guitar skills and the former for once again lending a solid pair of trusted ears).  Truth be told, there are few weeks that don't get a good Plummer once-over.  

If the SoundCloud player isn't loading
DOWNLOAD THIS WEEK'S SONG HERE
On a Mac: Ctrl+click and choose "Save Linked File As..."
On a PC: right click and choose "Save Target As..."

* He's actually more man than boy, just for the record.

lyrics
i make every mistake for a reason
you now every sad song has a season
turned it over again in my mind
and i'm not giving in this time

real love creeping in can be deadly
turning every sad song into a medley
of never quite getting to find
a diamond that really does shine
so I'm not giving in this time

you can take it back
caught your flu, not a heart attack
and i'm not looking back
your flu is not a heart attack

someday you'll take it away for no reason
saturday? or maybe today. it's the season
turned it over again in my mind
the hows that don't have a why
i'm not giving in this time

you could take it back...

 

Week 9 - Size of the Sea

Here is the fifth installment in the saga of my efforts to document every single emotion swimming around inside me regarding a certain subject who shall remain, now and forever, nameless.

Production notes: drums on this one! Looped drums from Logic, but drums none the less. They don't sound half bad.  Bass, oddly enough, is my acoustic guitar with tons of wacked out EQ on it.

I'd also like to give special thanks to a Mr. Christopher Plummer, for providing alarmingly insightful feedback on the mix (this week and the week prior). I spent my entire Sunday working on this - approximately 11 hours straight - and was subsequently quite delirious by the time I was ready to cut and print (or bounce and rip as it were). Can't tell you how invaluable a trusted pair of 3rd party ears is in that situation.

This one's kinda epic.  It's like my Freebird.  I hope that doesn't scare you.

 

If the SoundCloud player isn't loading
DOWNLOAD THIS WEEK'S SONG HERE
On a Mac: Ctrl+click and choose "Save Linked File As..."
On a PC: right click and choose "Save Target As..."

lyrics
take what you want
just don't try to take it from me
you got the heart
why would u come back for the sleeve?

all the pain should've told you
all the air couldn't hold you
in a room the size of the sea

you were found
till you heard it coming down
don't look now
but i think it's coming down
fill a room the size of the sea

you broke apart
and you're holding it all at the seems
wish you could start
wish you had enough left for me

all your chances are over
and all the ways that you know her
fill a room the size of the sea

you were found....

Week 6 - Mess We Made

This song was borne pretty effortlessly out of a simple lyric that caught my attention when it popped into my head earlier in the week. They lyric I'm referring to is 'you and me and the mess we made.'

I'm embroiled in a sort of 'situation' with a young man right now and this phrase seemed to capture some kind of essence of that situation. There was just something about it that struck me.

I built the whole song around it and it was relatively easy and painless.

Also, the guitar solo is perfect. I love guitar solos that start with the melody of the song. It's one of my guilty pleasures.

 

If the SoundCloud player isn't loading
DOWNLOAD THIS WEEK'S SONG HERE
On a Mac: Ctrl+click and choose "Save Linked File As..."
On a PC: right click and choose "Save Target As..."

lyrics
we should drive to a new town
radio up and the top down
boxes and bags packed full of shame
just you and me and the mess we made

you should take every single word
i said to you and you said to her
sprinkle it all on top of the fray
of you and me and the mess we made

the mess we made feels like a home
rooftop painted blue and gold
brown and red leaves on the lawn
(don't forget the)
sinking ground underneath it all

i really hope you don't stay here
i really hope it becomes clear
and every reason never ever fades
you and me and the mess we made

the mess we made...

Week 4 - Tick Tock

First of all, this is the 3rd song in a row for which the lyrics were written first.  I'm truly enjoying this method of songwriting (thank you, again Ms. Palumbo).

This song is quite clearly about me wasting my life away at a bar - there is a specific bar I can name, but I won't, because I know my fans may overrun it in the hopes of catching a glimpse of me there. tee hee ha haha <ahem> ha.  The influences here are also quite evident, though not ones you'd expect to co-exist quite so harmoniously, namely Kate Bush & Elliott Smith.  Go figure.

Also, you will notice that my nifty little soundcloud player has decided not to join us for this week.  It will return soon, I promise.

There is one more thing I would like to say about this week's song.  I have never before been able to play and record such a smokin' guitar solo as the one captured here, at approximately 1:48. It is my most favorite thing in America.

There is one final thing I'd like to say, but it is unrelated to this week's song.  In my internet bumblings this week, I've discovered several other brave souls subjecting themselves to this very same undertaking.  I shall shout them out appropriately in my sidebar and in another post - but for some reason right now, I just can't seem to summon the will to collect the urls and paste the code and blah blah blah. I'm a lazy, awful person.

 

If the SoundCloud player isn't loading
DOWNLOAD THIS WEEK'S SONG HERE
On a Mac: Ctrl+click and choose "Save Linked File As..."
On a PC: right click and choose "Save Target As..."

lyrics
just sit there
in your cold chair
with your face in your hands
and your lunch on your pants

touching the face on your watch
leather band
and the hand
goes
tick tock

sit there
fake a cool stare
with your hands on the bar
and your drink never far

touching the face on your watch...

the owner takes his seat
says, you gotta be kidding me
when change is all you know
and the word fast is said to slow
before you know it we'll be all grown

sit there
frizzy brown hair
with your lips on a shelf
white stain, nothing else

Week 2 - Stars to Chase You

So, this week I found myself entangled in a bit of a situation with a friend.  A friend with a penis. This song was inspired by that - specifically the line about pretty girls and mistaking stars for snow.  The rest is a loose interpretation of events coupled with the requisite compulsion to compose lines that rhyme. 

I have a feeling I may want to change the title of this blog to "Dudes I've Boned this Year and the Resulting Songs About Them," by the way.

I tried something new this week by writing lyrics first, then working on the melody on my guitar later.  Wouldn't have even entertained this idea had it not been for Dorian Palumbo, with whom I am working on a very kick-ass musical.

This is also the first time I recorded with Stella (the guitar, not the beer or my dog). It's a really old, awesome and rickety little guitar my cousin Jason gave me that can only handle keeping about 3 strings in tune at a time.  I think that limitation shaped the guitar part and it came out rather haunting yet minimalistic.

If the SoundCloud player isn't working for you, you can
DOWNLOAD WEEK 2 HERE.