Sounds Good

Me after the gym, entirely unrelated to the post, ha

I finally finished the song "Sounds Good" after working on it for three months... and actually, it isn't really finished, but I do have a nice solid sound for it... and I know the chords I want to play.  I may adjust some of the lyrics, but honestly, "Sounds Good" is a very emotional and heady song.  It starts off as though a sweet love song, lyrically, but as the music slightly changes from chorus to bridge, something isn't right, and the listener comes to find out that nothing actually sounds good, other than the song itself, of course.   It's a play on words and music... and I hope my audience will get that connection.  If not, nothing is lost... people get from music what they will... this song is very cathartic for me, and it's a stepping stone for me to move on from my past relationships.  Sounds good enough, right?

Labor

This past Saturday evening I got together with Peter, once again, to practice our songs.  We were playing with the idea of going out to an open mic this week... we have three solid songs that we've written and two covers.  However, until we figure out a name for our band, I am hesitant to step outside of our comfort zone.  Also, when it comes to performing covers, Peter is adamant about playing them topically, while I like to add my own twist to the songs... covers  may not be in store for us if we can't agree on how we want them to sound (Go ahead Peter: retort).  Despite this, when we write our songs, they are so organic, and our heads never clash.  Our minds combined create some of the greatest songs that I have written with another person.

There is a new song we are working on that was slightly unexpected to come about... but it worked its way in there.  I have to work on the lyrics a ton; they come from a poem I wrote back in February of 2004.  It was titled "The Toltec" because I was obsessed with naming my poems after the first couple words of each one (Emily Dickinson inspired).   It's about working really hard, but still trying to enjoy life.  I think the rename of the title to "Labor" is necessary to emphasize what the song is really about... I love the sound... it's a little more cryptic with a solid beat (and I can already imagine a remix).  As far as vocals are concerned, I want something a little more sultry and soulful than the other songs. Maybe Erykah Badu meets our other song "Frightening."  We shall see what we get from it...  we rough recorded a sampling, and I love how you can hear the rain falling in the background... I can imagine this song starting off with the sound of rain... something to remind us that we are all pouring our hearts out to get through this life, one work day at a time...

Hemingway, The Writer, The Man

"When you first start writing stories in the first person if the stories are made so real that people believe them the people reading them nearly always think the stories really happened to you.  That is natural because while you are making them up you had to make them happen to the person who was telling them.  If you do this successfully enough you make the person who is reading them believe that the things happened to him too.  If you can do this you are beginning to get what you are trying for which is to make the story so real beyond any reality that it will become a part of the reader's experience and a part of his memory.  There must be things that he did not notice when he read the story or the novel which  without his knowing it, enter into his memory and experience so that they are a part of his life.  This is not easy to do."

~from, Ernest Hemingway's unpublished manuscripts from the Kennedy Library collection, Roll 19, T 178