Write the Year 2021—Session 4, Assignment 5: Skies

Song 26 of 2021

This assignment is always my kryptonite. We had to write the entire melody first without writing any words.

So, this is UGH. It’s in Drop D, and the sketch is the original sketch that I made back when I wrote the song. I never reworked this one with my voice teacher. You can hear me not being able to find the chords up the neck at the very end, and I am SUPER warbly on the melody, which sits in a really terrible, uncomfortable place in my voice.

I should make a better sketch of this, but I’d have to figure out the chords again, and I’m not sure that I’m up for it, as the melody is a nightmare.

Write the Year 2021—Session 4, Assignment 4: Mess

Song 25 of 2021

Late July 2021. This had a lot of hoops to jump through. The verses needed to be four lines and use a III-major chord; the chorus had to start on the IV. It was also four lines that followed the structure:
Phrase
Response
Phrase
Response 2
End line

Painful for everyone, but it also had to have an instrumental after the second chorus and then repeat the chorus phrase over a 4-chord cycle for the outro.

My notebook indicates that I had the notion of falling apart/being pulled apart at the seams early on. In don’t know when the central metaphor came it, but I remember that I enjoyed writing this song, largely because there is a song called “Truck” by a band called Nickel that I have always liked, because it sticks closely to its metaphor and makes it work (“My love is like a truck/it’s gotta hook and winch/it’s gonna pull you out of all the stupid shit/ that you have buried yourself in/my love is like a truck”). I do not flatter myself that this works as well, but I amused myself with my metaphor!

Write the Songs 2021—Session 4, Assignment 3: Get Through

Song 24 of 2021

This is another from July 2021, and it’s a good old word list. I’m not sure what prompted the ominous minor key. Other than that, only two things I can think of about this one that are of note:
—a friend in the class also used “Dixie Cup” in the sense of kids making a telephone out of a pair and some string
—I actually didn’t use the majority of the words in the list. What a wasted opportunity to use Camembert and bowling pin.
—Okay, three things: at the bottom of the lead sheet, I have written: “Third verse?* Repeat verse one? Defenestration?”

*This says “(I GUESS)” next to it, so the class must have voted for keeping verse 3**
**Okay, a sneaky fourth thing. The second line of the third verse has (WHY? WHY U DO THIS?) written next to it. I have such relaxing hobbies.

Write the Songs 2021—Session 4, Assignment 2: Hope You Know

Song 23 of 2021

Well, figuring this one out was quite a journey. I had the assignment right there in the notebook from early July 2021: Refrain first, strive for Beatles form (verse, verse, bridge, verse), but the free-writing material in the notebook was not at all familiar.

That is, apparently, because in the writing of this, the song went from an aggressively angry song about being left by someone to a something that is somewhere in between passive-aggressive anger and a genuine attempt to behave well in spite of a painful parting and see one’s way through to the moment when one is able to wish the other well. I think the sentiment just gets confused, and the recording is at a much brisker tempo than I remember it being. That may be because this, too, breaks the 3-minute mark, and that always makes me nervous.

Write the Songs 2021—Session 4, Assignment 1: Think Less

Song 22 of 2021

So, after a million years, I’m trying to get back to posting songs. I mean, why not? I’m only 2 years behind, right?

SO. This one is from late June 2021. That would have been the first assignment of the fourth session. We were still doing class online, I believe. Anyway, the assignment was root motion in fourths (basically, the circle of fifths, counterclockwise, because I to IV always sounds good. But in looking at the lead sheet for this, there’s an uncharacteristically small amount of root motion in fourths. There’s A to D in the beginning of the verse, then some Bm to Em at the end; I cannot explain the key change in the chorus, as it has nothing to do with the line of fourths. And there’s another key change in the bridge? WTF? At least there, the line of fourths (Em to Am to D7) gets me out of C and back into G for the final chorus.

I think the silly, poppy subject matter must have at least come out of the idea of the line of fourths, but I really can’t remember what, specifically, prompted this song, other than it being vaguely about my teenage odd-numbered boyfriend.

Write the Year 2022—Week 17: Stumbling In

This is very glurgey and based on a self-prompt from a somewhat unexpected place.

Title: Stumbling In
WC: 1000

At the risk of giving the impression that I do nothing but ineffectually stalk Paul F. Tompkins via his sadly defunct podcasts, I’ve been working my way through Spontaneanation. It’s kind of an evolution of the Pod F. Tompkast—it starts with a wonderfully rambling monologue, and it’s scored by Eban Schletter, but the main segments are an interview with a guest followed by a long-form improv with three other guests based on a location supplied by the interviewee.

It’s silly and chaotic and perfect for walks to and from the train. It’s probably not perfect for dog walks, because I’m reasonably sure the beagsset and I are now the subjects of local legends about the sea witch who cackles her way through the quasi-woods at the northeast corner of her neighborhood with a medium-sized, snuffling beast racing before her. But, hey, this is my Southside, people.

The interview is based on a question posed by the guest from the previous episode. PFT delights in asking if the guest would like to know the identity of the questioner, then telling them they can go back and listen to the previous episode. I’m thirty-something episodes in, and almost without exception, the interviewee is petrified in the moment before they hear the question. Many, if not most, are deliberately strange or simply ridiculous, but the interviews are always great and always roam through some bizarre territory (ask yourself how Paget Brewster got from banning all GMOs to her dad’s balls hanging out of bespoke swim trunks, the answer is by way of PFT).

But Bruce McCulloch, an utterly delightful guest himself, left the most interesting question for Jim Rash (did you know the Dean from Community has an Oscar? I sure didn’t): What was your best mistake? It led to a really interesting conversation about him and his writing partner writing their first pilot and really not getting how things worked in terms of getting anyone to see it. It was funny, of course, and had me wanting to shout that the Silver Spoons (my rendition of the theme song available on demand) spin-off with Jason Bateman was called It’s Your Move and it wasn’t exactly a spin-off and and and it was cruelly canceled on a cliffhanger about a fake death metal band called the Dregs of Humanity. I often want to yell things out at PFT podcasts, but at least I don’t actually yell them out on Twitter, right? RIGHT?!?

Anyway, this is all a very long-winded way to say that 21 years ago, almost exactly to the day, I started on the path to my best mistake. I took a group voice class at the Old Town School of Folk Music. I had always enjoyed singing, I’d done some musical theater in high school and regularly old theater in college. I’d been sorely tempted by tear-off phone numbers for voice lessons, but the idea of being one-on-one with someone was too overwhelming. For reasons I don’t really remember, I’d gone to the voice lesson of the one person I have retained any interest in talking to from the first 18 years of my life, and not only did her voice blow me away, but just the sheer and obvious joy of singing out also thrilled me.

But it would be a while before I worked up the courage to actually sign up. It was awkward and terrifying. I was sure I would never find the room. I was sure they wouldn’t even let me in. I was sure this was a very stupid thing. But I found the room and I sat on the weird church pew thing outside, waiting for the first class to finish. A person at least and as awkward and terrified as I sat down we babbled at each other about how we didn’t know anyone and who did anything as stupid as this anyway. And then a friend from college whom I hadn’t seen in years ambled up, turned out to be in the same class, and now it was extremely awkward because I appeared to be running some kind of undercover extrovert scam.

So I took Vocal Tech 1. And then I took Vocal Tech 2, because THAT IS HOW THINGS WORK. And having taken that, I didn’t know what to do. There were no more Vocal Techs (no more Vocals Tech?). So I rented a guitar and took Guitar 1, which was definitely crazy. And at the end of the first class, the teacher said, “Now we all go upstairs to the big hall for Second Half.” And I took this as an instruction because I went to Catholic school and there are rules.

And there were probably a hundred people in the big hall, many of whom were holding their first rented guitar and feeling proud because they now knew two whole chords. Kind of. There was a screen and a projector and songs that had many, many chords, but the teachers called out what to do if you only knew the D, if you only knew the A7, if the G was some impossible contortion of fingers. It was nuts. And great. And I think it was probably, like, six weeks before I realized the Second Half was technically optional.

I started breaking the rules not long after. I took Guitar 1-Rep twice because the first time was terrible. There was a ringer who played classical guitar and the teacher got embroiled in long conversations about capos and evading playing even the baby B-minor he was trying to teach us. I’d “fail” myself the first time I took Songwriting 1 (to be honest, I should have failed myself the first six or seven times I took Songwriting 1) and met the friend who’d push me to perform.

I look back at myself, a grown-ass adult stumbling through my own kindergarten rules. I made some pretty great mistakes.

Write the Year 2022—Week 07: Tompkastawayed

Title: Tompkastawayed
WC: 1100

I’m giving myself permission to ramble this week. I’m sort of giving myself permission to ramble. I just spent fifteen minutes trying to search WordPress to see if I have already rambled about something I want to ramble about. WordPress, a supporter of the ramble, it seems, will. not. be. searched.

Some time ago I was watching Chuck as my background show. This is when I’m grading and not really paying attention and I’m out of General Hospital. This is how I watched Mad Men twelve years late. I liked the show well enough—Chuck, that is, not Mad Men, which I found to be (1) most notable for the number of people I recognized from guest spots on Castle and (2) shockingly overrated garbage populated almost entirely with actors who deserved far, far, far better material. But Mad Men is not why I came here to ramble. Chuck is also not really why I came here to ramble, except as a jumping-off point.

I liked Chuck well enough. I was entertained to the point that I got over the fact that Jake 2.0 had executed the concept better. I thought the dynamic between Chuck and his sister and his sister’s doofy boyfriend was something quite sweet and unusual that added a lot to the show. But it was definitely a background show—it never sucked me in until the episode with “Leaving on a Jetplane.”

There’s a band called Jeffster comprising Chuck’s hapless coworkers. Not unlike the a cappella group fronted by Ted on Scrubs, it’s a joke, but one that hinges on the actors’ hidden talents being suddenly deployed in silly, unexpected ways that turn out to be disarming. In this episode, I sincerely cannot recall what is happening, I only remember this version of the song suddenly commanding my entire attention. Even now the memory is hitting my heart forcefully and directly.

So that was weird.

This week—just yesterday, in fact—I had a very similar “out of time” experience. I tend to listen to podcasts when I walk the dog. I’m often trying to work on my song for the week in my head as I’m out and nominally absorbing new events and images, so listening to music is a bit at cross purposes with that. But I’m a persnickety podcast listener and I definitely tend to play it safe by sticking to people I know that I like. Now that I think about it, more or less every podcast I have listened to, liked, and not given up on radiates outward from The Thrilling Adventure Hour.

I listened to Stay F. Homekins from the beginning and only just finished up with that (or caught up to the present, rather, as thankfully they’re still going, just as a monthly now, rather than a weekly) in early January. From there, I landed on the Pod F. Tompkast which hasn’t had a new installment since back in 2013, but PFT is very high up on my guaranteed-to-like list.

And I have very much liked it. It’s rambling and surreal, both by its nature and because hoo boy, is it a trip to listen to the inner workings of the minds of people almost ten years ago. I simply love dipping in and out of PFT’s stream of consciousness to sometimes focus on the music Eban Schletter is improvising behind. I find it genuinely fucking delightful when some move Eban makes utterly wrecks PFT. (The Jazzy Rascal changed my life, friends.) And it’s a total treat to get to hear snippets from the Paul F. Tompkins Show at Largo as well as the always devastatingly funny calls with Jen Kirkman, who is another comic I love.

Twice in some of these later episodes, the Tompkast has pulled a post-credits move. (This was actually alarming because my podcast app gets whimsical at times and plays things out of order, which drives me batty.) In the first instance, it added PFT closing the PFT show with “Danny Boy”—something that I only learned through Stay F. Homekins was a tradition and something I deeply regretted never getting to experience. So that was a genuine treat.

But then—but then—yesterday, the penultimate full episode seemed as if it was also going to end this way, when suddenly there was a final gag, calling back to the excerpt that had been part of the main show. The content of the gag is not especially important, though it was strange and quite funny, and the end-of-show callback was even stranger and funnier. Except—DAMN YOU, TOMPKINS—it lands on PFT and Crissy Guerrero (someone I was not at all familiar with, but who was terrific) doing “Danny’s Song,” and it killed. me. dead.

Now, perhaps you’re thinking you don’t know “Danny’s Song.” You do. It’s the “Even though we ain’t got money” song. Perhaps you’re thinking you didn’t know Kenny Loggins wrote it. I’ll give you that one, because I sure as shit didn’t know that, because we were an Anne Murray household, thank you very much.

“Danny’s Song” is way over the cheese line. It breaks so many rules in gleefully dancing back and forth on both sides of the cheese line. But goddamn if it doesn’t get me all the time. Some of that is nostalgia. We really were an Anne Murray household. We were a “The Absolute Squarest Music Possible, Thank You Very Much” household. But I will go to my grave loving Anne Murray’s voice, and the melody really is beautiful, even if some of the words are a mess. (I think Anne wisely omits the weird Beta Chi verse? Kenny—that Beta Chi verse needed the first two lines rewritten. Badly needed.)

But this version. THIS VERSION. Crissy Guerrero’s voice is just beautiful. And PFT’s voice—WHICH I ALREADY KNEW TO BE VERY GOOD INDEED—was just a dagger to my cynical, judgmental heart from the minute he comes in in the second half of the first verse. The arrangement? Go to hell, arranger (Eban? Of course it’s the Jazzy Rascal), because that arrangement is so over-the-line beautiful, I am offended by it. The way it makes you wait for the harmony and fucking delivers. The way the whole cast comes in at the end. I am dead from it.

There is just something about that kind of totally delightful surprise, about being tackled by people who you don’t think of as Singers just getting utterly lost in the beauty and joy of singing together. There. is. just. something.

Write the Songs 2021, Session 3, Assignment 7: After Midnight (At the Top of My Lungs)

Song 21 of 2021

This was from mid-June 2021.

Huh. I would have sworn that this assignment had to do with taking a title from another song, but its only instruction was that it had to be about a time of day and that time of day was probably conveyed in the title.

This arose out of memories of when we bought our house. We had a couple of weeks in between closing and when we needed to be out of our apartment. The bedroom was a terrible mustard color and the upstairs bedroom had a hand-painted Peter Rabbit mural. My options were painting or developing an acid habit. I would soon regret not choosing the latter.

I did both bedrooms on my own. It took forever, and there was nothing in the house at all. I slept on an air mattress with a broken seal on the dining room floor several nights in a row.

The painting itself was, of course, incredibly boring, so I sang everything I could think of. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought to bring a radio or something. I might have even had my first iPod at that point—I know I at least had the terrible Archos Jukebox that was my first MP3 player.

In any case, it only belatedly occurred to me that with no curtains or anything, I would have looked like a complete lunatic, as it was obvious that I was belting out showtunes and what have you.

Not sure how the 6/8 came about, and I’m still not quite sure where this ought to be capoed.

Write the Songs 2021—Session 3, Assignment 6: Unfamiliar City

Song 20 of 2021

This was a form assignment. Two verses followed by a bridge where the chords come twice as fast as in the verses, a third verse, the bridge again, and then the refrain in a higher register.

I had a HELL of a time getting a recording of this down this past week, and just now I’ve decided to go with the rough version I recorded back in June, because that at least adheres to the form (which is why—please shoot me—this is four minutes long).

I don’t really remember the lyrical inspiration for this. My notebook indicates that this started out in a far, far drippier place, and that the idea of the letter that no one wrote came pretty early and was responsible for the more up-tempo turn, though the footprints got frantic early . . .

Here is the real mystery, though—I have a list of writers on the page: “Nietzche, Ginsburg, Heinlein, Sun Tzu, Dickens, Shakespeare.” I . . . what? It’s not atypical for me to end up with a list of words or phrases that have the right rhythm/cadence. But this list is 100% a mystery to me.

The bridge is a hot mess. I, in fact, spent my voice lesson this week working on a simplified version of it, and I could not make the simplified version work AT ALL. So. There you have it.

Write the Songs 2022—Session 1, Assignment 2: Hardly Any Light

Song #2 of 2022

The assignment this week was to incorporate some kind of a drone—no other instructions. I was not feeling musically capable, so this is more or less “big G” shapes (first and second strings held down constantly with the song being mostly in G).

I was also not feeling especially lyrically inspired. About the only image that was “speaking to me” was this weird stretch of grass that I see when walking the dog. We’ve got quite a bit of snow and ice otherwise, and then there’s this really long grass that just looks like it’s kind of chilling. So that gave me the first verse.

I have observed before that for someone who hates light, I write a lot about it, so here I am again. I hate January. I hate the pissant few more minutes of headache from the light at the beginning and end of the day, and it struck me that people who have regular old Seasonal Affective Disorder hate January for the opposite reasons, but we can all agree that this time of year sucks. That sort of gave me the “losing our damned minds.”

I also had the words pinhole camera in my notebook for a few weeks. I just like the cadence of it, so that became the fairly stupid second verse (although I admit I’m going to try to work “the corner of obscure and smug” into everyday conversation).

The bridge came out of the fact that the grass in question is along a south-facing fence, et voila, something almost entirely, but not quite unlike a song.

I don’t like the rhythm or pace of this. I found it really hard to get into, but I also don’t have any alternatives in mind.