"Hey! Long time no see. Was in the area, thought I'd see if you were still around!"
Bwah?
Progress on this particular song has been minimal at best. However it *did* inspire me to start looking back at older projects. In particular I've been sorting through the stuff - samples, ideas, crazy sounds, etc - that I've storing on this computer since mid 2006.
There's a bunch of stuff on here that I... I can see myself doing some really wacky and awesome things with. Sampling the dishwasher, bowing and striking the disk platter, recording traffic sounds, sampling this and that, digitally messing with said sounds... (Sadly I still have to retrieve some of the sampling I had archived from before my Mac died.)
I just have to figure out _how_. *sighs* I really need to sit down and tackle more of that.
But that brings me to an... interesting juncture in my career right now. I've really been trying to focus on the singer-songwriter stuff and neglecting my more experimental-ish side. I've been drowning myself in my pop-centric tunes in the goal of getting out and playing more.
It's... I want to say it's a necessary evil. But I can't convince myself of that. Part of me is asking myself, "was that the shark we just jumped?" I don't consider most of my stuff _pure_ pop - there's a lot of stuff I throw in that kinda moves it a bit away.
However there is *still* that nagging voice. I mean the pop is a LOT easier to write. I don't have to think anywhere near as much. I don't have to second-guess myself as often...
But... yeah.
I'm still at a loss for lyrics, though. I find the more I work with words, the more I hate them. Or rather I hate my inability to really pull some awesome shit outta them. :/
I've got a good half-dozen songs on the burners right now - all with incomplete lyrics. Phrases, verses, choruses, a bridge here, a prechorus there... I'm beating my head against walls to flesh them out further. And all I'm getting is bloody plaster.
At least both "Cold" and "(I've got a boy) Stuck In My Head" are relatively complete. The latter just needs some more work on the arrangement. The drums are still missing elements and the verses need some more padding/layers. "Don't You See" is also pretty far along. Again, lyrics are missing, I need some more instrumentation, and the drums/percussion need attending to.
Still, that's three songs/demos moderately far along. Yay!
I also got inspired and picked up an older song. Someone forwarded me an article about John Mayer trying to apologize for using the "n" word. The irony? That, upon reading it, that's probably the least of the WTF-isms. I mean, "my dick is a white supremacist"?!?!?
WHAT?!?!?
Well, let's hop, skip, and a jump back a few years. I think it was 2006 - *maybe* 2007. His song, "Waiting On the World to Change" was... somewhere on the charts. I don't remember where. He really wasn't anywhere on my list of things to listen to.
But then, in a fit of fury, a friend pointed out the song to me - focusing on the lyric content. "It's hard to beat the system/When we're standing at a distance/So we keep waiting/Waiting on the world to change" And of course I immediately shared his anger.
As someone in a marginalized community, this really affronted my sense of decency. As someone who faces daily a dozen battles - both internal and external - just for being on this side of a political hotbed, it appalls my sense of responsibility. It reeks of apathy, laziness, and selfishness at best - white privilege and a slushy slew of -isms at worst.
Almost immediately a counter-song started forming in my mind. "Would YOU just be 'waiting' if you actually had to face some of this shit?" is what I want to scream in his face. "Would you just sit around and hope that life somehow got better for you?"
I'd actually just started toying around with the whole DADGAE[*] tuning then, too. Took one little riff that I'd conjured up already and *whisk* I was off. At least for a little bit. Once again the lyrical barrier sorta sprung up and, while I've never completely put it down, I just... yeah. Have a bit to go.
Somewhat recently a few more lyrics had come to mind. A chorus, "I'm glad that your load is light/So you can bask in your privileged life", has existed for a few months. Tonight I cobbled together a second verse and something of a bridge.
So I sat down and recorded what I have. I need to fix some spots. It's ending much too cynically - something which is contrary to the whole point. It's not that we can't fix life; it's that life ain't gonna just fix itself. Plus the bridge is a tad too jarring right now. (I think I just need to calm down a bit on the emoting!)
- It's You (2010/02/11)
- Don't You See? (2010/02/10)
- (I've got a boy) Stuck In My Head
- Cold
- Evening Gown
- I hereby declare I will pronounce this DAD-GAY. *nod*
