This blog sucks!

This is a screen capture of the stats for this blog over the last two weeks.  For a while I was posting every day, even going so far as to write posts ahead and schedule them to post at a certain hour every day.  I started that about Oct 31, which was after that slight spike the blog got from someone linking to an older post.  As you can see, during the time that I actually posted a post a day, the readership was going down.  Then I stopped, and the readership goes back up again!

It's not cause and effect -- and unless I'm inversely susceptible to "mysterious internet activity energies," my posting and visits to the blog aren't related at all.  The truth is, eying that last number on the bottom there -- returning visits -- the blog really only has about a half dozen readers.  The vast majority of the rest are people who come after a search for an image or a term that directs them here. These people rarely stay more than a second or two.

It took me a little while to figure out that almost all the people who are counted as visitors aren't actually reading the blog.  I have pondered ever since what I should actually do -- is it worth it to keep writing something like this when it entertains so few people?

You have probably heard that writers write because they have to, not because they are rewarded for it.  And I know that this is true.  But it's also true that keeping a blog uses some of your energy, which you might spend elsewhere.  And it smarts to do something and realize that you have come to be like the crazy person on the street corner shouting at the passersby who do their best to avoid making eye contact.

I don't need to be that guy..

Behind the music

Some time ago, you might recall that I spoke of a dream I had that showed Lennon and McCartney had a collaborator that even they weren't perfectly well aware of.  Here it is:

1-1-2009 

I was watching John Lennon and Paul McCartney recording one of their hits, but I can’t remember which one now. There was a man there with them. He was tall, clean shaven, with short, reddish-blonde hair. He sang along with them as they recorded, and I thought to myself, “I never noticed his voice in that song before,” and it was like a revelation to me. He saw that they’d goofed one part and rewound the tape to that spot (you could see it on a computer screen, so it wasn’t period technology). He re-sang his part, but Paul and John didn’t join in. They looked confused by him. Then he stopped and had a vision, remembering how the song really went in the future. He said to them, “You will write a bridge to this song, but I’m not going to tell you what it is. I could show you because I can see it and hear it, how it will appear in the future. But it’s so easy. I don’t know which one of you will write it, maybe it will be Paul.” The two Beatles were really confused now. They seemed helpless, so that he took up a guitar and started playing the song to get them into it again, but accidentally showing the change as he did. Then he looked at John and Paul and realized that he knew what was going to happen to them. John especially seemed to want to know. The man decided not to tell them.

In my notes about the dream I mentioned that he had seemed German -- and I had the association with Nazi Germany.  Something about him seemed ominous, though he was not especially evil or malevolent in the dream.

I just happened to run across a video from Pink Floyd's film, The Wall.  It's the section with the song "Comfortably Numb,"  and I was suddenly struck by the ending of the video and how similar it was, to my mind, to the dream that I'd had.

In this case, there's no man sitting beside "Pink" in the limo, but he keeps picking at the skin on his face, until it starts to bubble and boil off him:

When he finally gets it all off, he reveals that inside is a man dressed something like a Nazi.

Later in the movie, you will see this character leading a sort of neo-nazi rally, but it's not very hard to just see this as an interpretation of a rock show.  Perhaps the insight of the movie is that the nazi rallies and rock shows are related?

A much older Roger Waters in a similar outfit

So I had this dancing around in my head, thinking that it was interesting that image would be there.

Now I just noticed the lyrics to Foo Fighter's song Learn to Fly.  Check out what jumps out of the first verse, but keep going along, keeping in mind the idea that sometimes the music made by popular artists might come from an outside source:

Run and tell all of the angels
This could take all night
Think I need a devil to help me get things right
Hook me up a new revolution
Cause this one is a lie
We sat around laughing and watched the last one die 

I'm looking to the sky to save me
Looking for a sign of life
Looking for something to help me burn out bright
I'm looking for a complication
Looking cause I'm tired of trying
Make my way back home when I learn to fly high 

I think I'm done nursing the patience
It can wait one night
I'd give it all away if you give me one last try
We'll live happily ever trapped if you just save my life
Run and tell the angels that everything's alright 

I'm looking to the sky to save me
Looking for a sign of life
Looking for something to help me burn out bright
I'm looking for a complication
Looking cause I'm tired of trying
Make my way back home when I learn to fly high
Make my way back home when I learn to. . . 

Fly along with me, I can't quite make it alone
Try to live this life my own (and)
Fly along with me, I can't quite make it alone
Try to live this life my own. . . 

If we take the image of flight to refer to success in music, this whole song could be a rather plaintive call for influence from whatever it is in the sky -- spirits, aliens, whoever.  Though the first verse seems pretty clear about the artist realizing that he needs "a devil to help me get things right."

Taking a look at the history of the Foo Fighters, isn't it rather interesting that "Learn to Fly" was their first big hit.  Before this song was released, they hadn't had that sort of success that Dave Grohl must have been used to, having known such heights with Nirvana.  Grohl was perhaps pretty "tired of trying" to match that by the time he got around to writing "Learn to Fly."

It may only be that this sort of thing is a way of artists acknowledging the unconscious element that fosters, supplements, and often even directs the creative process.

Or it may be something else..

Song Stories -- the "Cars" trio

I wrote three songs last year which I thought of as inspired by The Cars.

They don't particularly sound like Cars songs, though.  Which has taught me an important lesson -- even when I'm trying to rip someone off, I only wind up sounding like myself.  And that is a good thing.

The first written probably sounds least like a potential Cars tune -- "It's all because of you."  They lyrics intentionally use dream images as metaphors, but it's not particularly explicit about it.  To make short work of it, it's about how toxic family relationships can scar you for life, if you let them.

I got no shoes on my feet
I got no rhythm, I can't dance to the beat
Feels like I'm falling into the fire
Can't get a handle on this strange desire 

I can feel the heat in my veins
Can't stand here burning while I go insane
I don't know what.. I'm gonna do
And it's all because of you 

It's all because of you
It's all because of you
It's all.. because of you
It's all because of you 

There's got to be another way
Can't put my feelings out on display
I'm not like you, I ought to be
I'm not so good at getting what I needed 

It's all because of you
It's all because of you
It's all.. because of you
It's all because of you 

You know me, I'm like the tide
I got a lot of junk locked up inside me
I don't know what I'm gonna do
It's all come to this because of you 

Some kind of monster in me tonight
I got no weapon I can bring to the fight
I got no shoes on my feet
I got no rhythm, I can't dance to the beat, no 

It's all because of you
It's all because of you
It's all.. because of you
It's all because of you

Rhetorically, the song just blames someone and no solution is offered except in the negative -- "Can't put my feelings out on display" -- an attitude of which the song itself exists as a counter example.  The secret to these things is that of course we have to put our feelings out on display, if for no other purpose than to see them in the light of day, because everything looks different out in the real world.  The song has an evocative power of its own, but it is whiny and riddled with weakness.  It's what you have to not do.  Blaming others robs you of your power.

Now the dream images, in case you aren't familiar with them, include shoes, weapon, not being able to dance.  The weapon is easy enough -- it represents your feeling of power in a given situation, and is related to teeth in this sense.  Dancing is also easy -- it's a public expression of togetherness and not being able to dance exhibits a sense of alienation.  The shoes, though, are interesting -- it's hard to tread your path without good shoes.  As an article of clothing, shoes represent aspects we "take on" temporarily during our incarnation, in the same sense that we wear different clothes on different days.  You will probably have had dreams that had to do with not having the right clothes or shoes for an activity, and these dreams speak of your preparation for the task at hand, whatever that might be.  But shoes have a distinct function in helping to propel us in our chosen direction.  Not having any shoes would represent not being able to tread the path, let alone being prepared for it.

Now back to the song and its sounds.  I was pretty pleased with my production of this song -- it's clean and well articulated for the most part, though the mix may be unbalanced, pretty much an inevitability now that my left ear is suspect.  The bass here is the Korean made Tobias.  You can really hear the wood through the Bartolini Soapbars here.  I think this song shows the bass off at its best.

The guitar fills were very interesting for me, because I just started playing them.  During the section before the final "lead" I just started tapping the strings instead of strumming and it sounds very nice there.

I put lead in quotes because none of those lines are proper leads, they are just melodies stated and restated.

Overall I'm pretty happy with the tune.

The second song in the trio is All I want is to be with you.  This one comes a bit closer to the idea of a Cars tune, except for the irritating repeating guitar in the left ear.  I'd definitely tone that down in a remix.  But even this one sounds more like a song from before the Cars existed than a proper Cars tune, with the vaguely Led Zeppelin bridge and instrumentation.  The lyrics are pretty straightforward pop, though I will say that I conceived it as about the imagined audience and not about a girl.  So the song is about what I would like to get out of my creative endeavors.

It doesn't take paparazzi at the window
I don't like a throng
It doesn't take an airtight alibi
I'll never be that wrong 

It doesn't take a million bucks
I never want to be your ego centered self destructor
It doesn't take a fast car
don't want to pay the gas and I don't need to go that far 

All I want is to be with you 

I don't need a whole lot of prized possessions
I don't need fine clothes
And I don't need a 100 different pairs of shoes
All I need is just one thing I know 

All I want is to be with you 

Oh yeah
Feel like you're calling me home, yeah 

I like to feel you next to me
And all I want is to be with you 

I don't need artificial stimulation
I don't get that tight
All I know is the secret of anticipation is
If it feels right it feels right

All I want is to be with you

Pretty simple and plaintive, I'd say.  There's a missed opportunity in the "All I know is the secret of anticipation" lyric.  Those last two lines are throw away quality, but I've not been able to replace them with something better.

The last song of the trio, "If you don't have love" sounds least like a Cars tune, and continues with the critique of fame and fortune launched in the previous song.

What good is having fortune and fame
what good is being good at the game
what good that everyone knows your name
if you don't have love? 

What good is having heap loads of power
what good is being man of the hour
what good is all the food you devour
if you don' t have love 

Who would think that I might be mistaken
it's evident and plain for all to see
but the simple truths are easier forsaken
I would think you would have to agree
look at all the unhappy people 

Listen you can take it from me
It's as simple as simple can be
there is no way to be happy
if you don't have love 

Who would think that I might be mistaken
it's evident and plain for all to see
the simple truths are easier forsaken
I would think you would have to agree
look at all the unhappy people 

What good to wear a crown on your head
what good is knowing everything said
what good is having breakfast in bed
if you don't have love 

If I had it all to do over again, I'd sing it less with that strange inflection.   I don't know if I'll ever get to recording a new vocal for it, at least with me singing, because it's such a chore to get my vocals right.

Surely you have realized that this might be the case by now..

It's a frustration for me, because I can hear the songs, but I can't really sing them.  And I've not been very successful finding anyone to sing them for me.  This is partly because I don't try very hard, and partly because of the nature of musical collaborations.  Songwriters are plentiful these days, and most are only interested in doing their own stuff.  Also, musicians generally hear the mistakes in a demo and stop listening pretty quickly if they hear too many, so it's in your interest to do the best job you can if you want to attract someone into a project.  So my natural shyness and habitual sloppiness are a double whammy for me in this regard.

I do recall dreaming once that someone advised me to stop singing on my songs.  Heh.  I probably should have taken that advice!  But I hear the songs with the lyrics and singing already intact.  I feel like it's my job to get them out into the air.

Probably my favorite bit about this last song is the way it ends.  I love that emphatic BAM at the end.

Song Stories -- Suburban Tragedy

This was another song that went through quite an evolution before it became what you hear now.

Suburban Tragedy

It began as a short little song I was writing for my son Sam, which was to be called "Dinosaurs."  I wanted it to be proggy from the beginning, but things did not go well for that iteration of the tune.  I got stuck for lyrics, and the sounds I chose were awful -- I actually had a falling bomb sound as an asteroid strike for the end of the dinosaurs, which came near the beginning of the song.

If that sounds intriguing, trust me, in execution it was terrible.  My son was disappointed when I didn't finish the song, but I was stuck in a bad place for it.  I wrote this at a time when I was working with a keyboard player on a project of his but for which I was contributing some material.  I felt his song selections were too idiosyncratic and, in a word, wimpy, and that we should drop many of them and attempt to write some new material.  Since he and I were both into progressive rock, I thought we should focus on prog tunes and I got busy trying to write some.  The fact the subject matter was dinosaurs and the keyboard sounds I used were so awful kept him from giving this song a second glance.

This song snippet also came from that time period, which must have been around 2003 or so I think.

Brighter than the sun (fragment)

That one provoked some interest, but he could not be moved from his planned project.  I think he was a perfectionist and once he started something, he could not be satisfied if he didn't finish it.

I, on the other hand, will abandon projects with, well, abandon, if I come to think they aren't worth the time I'm investing in them.

Interestingly enough, I had a dream at this time.  In it I was in a long line with other people, and the line was moving, but I was trying to pick up some crayon drawings that were strewn about on the floor.  I could see that I was going to lose my place in line if I didn't just let them go, and they weren't worth saving anyway.

And that is a good description of that project.  The keyboardist got angry with me for trying to introduce new songs to the project and stopped answering emails for a while, which gave me a graceful exit point.

Now back to "Suburban Tragedy," which was still a song about dinosaurs at this time, and I was pretty unhappy with it.

Later on, after I had left the project with the keyboardist, while thinking about the tune I heard the lyrics, "She could never have the things she wanted," over the melody, and it was a different vocal line than what was on there at the time.  I don't think a copy of that original tune survives, and I don't remember it.  But I was intrigued about why she couldn't have these things that she wanted.  I put my pen to paper, and in a short while I had the first two verses pretty well mapped out.

She could never have the things she wanted
The things she dreamed could never be
On account of cruel reality
So she waits like one looking in the window
Wishing for what she cannot have, [yeah]  

He could not stand his braindead day job
And so he'd retreat into his own world alone
When conflict arises, as it will
[Oh] it goes badly 

And that's where things stood for a while.   I knew that it needed something else and I wasn't sure what.  So I put it aside for a while, and during that time I sold the bass I had originally recorded it with and bought a Rickenbacker 4001c64S.  Then I "heard" a new middle section.  I thought it was brilliant and that it suited the song, and brought it to a new place.  There's just the Rick, a Gibson guitar, and drum loops behind the voice here.  The keyboards have all dropped out, but in context, you don't notice that.

They can't agree to disagree
And then she tells him how things will be
He doesn't listen, he turns away
Loses track of time in video games 

People have told me that they don't like the falsetto singing in this section of the song, but I felt like the song needed to sound precarious and delicate there.  I think a better singer could pull it off without it sounding bad.

Now here is where all that work I had done on the original prog tune worked for me.  I had some variations on the main theme mapped out, which I thought would actually serve well in a story song like this one.  And it is still vaguely proggy even after the changes.  To me the song's structure is kind of a new thing, though I'm very sure someone else, probably lots of people, have done this sort of thing before.  Certainly it's a spiritual successor to such songs as the Beatles "She's Leaving Home."

[Oh] she could not believe his callousness
And he thought that she was thing obsessed
[Oh] she wondered whether he was sane, yeah
To him everything was such a game 

They finally came to a decision
They split in two and never spoke again
Because they could not see it standing right before them
Thus was ended yet another sweet suburban dream

The return that begins with "she could not believe.." is the variation on the main theme that I was talking about.  It's been so long now, I can't even remember what made me think to do that, but I had planned it from when the song was about dinosaurs, and now it fit perfectly after the middle section.  So the song, written over three distinct periods, sounds like a unified whole, as if it had existed already and was simply waiting to be recovered from the "Dinosaurs" disaster.

Instrumentally, I did a lot of things in this song that I hadn't done before.  The extended acoustic fills and leads, though not technically difficult, were not something I had tried often.  I can think of only one previous song where I did something similar.  It's an example of that "Holy Ghost" descending on me, because I played those parts pretty quickly, without thinking much about it.

The bass line is interesting because it uses two different basses, at least.  It started with my first Warwick Corvette 5, which was such a versatile and beautiful instrument.  I got rid of it because it hurt my left hand to play it on account of the larger neck a 5 string requires, but truth be told I was getting used to it by the time I sold it.  The 2nd bass was the Rickenbacker.  That was a magnificent instrument and I'd love to have one of them again.  It truly gets the tone you want it to, but it costs way too much for a hobbyist like me to justify, so I sold it for what I originally paid for it (less shipping) and replaced it with another Warwick Corvette 5.  By this time I had realized my mistake in having let it go.  The new Warwick seems to have a slightly thinner neck and I've gotten used to it now.  It's truly a tone monster.  It can sound gritty and growly, sort of like a Rick, and also smooth and clean, or anything in between.

I was quite proud of this song when I was done, though I recognized that I couldn't really do it justice vocally.  I'd love to re-record it with a full band and good vocalist.  I think there's a lot of good still buried in it that could be revealed by a better treatment.

I also have considered making this song's structure a form and using it again on different tunes.  One thing I find attractive is that there's no chorus, but it still has hooks.  I like the way the cello starts the theme and then the guitar takes it -- it's this recurring figure that serves as the "chorus" of the song.  None of the words are repeated and I'm very attracted to this, because the repetition of words in a song gets pretty boring to me.  You may find that surprising, given how often I'll repeat a chorus at the end of a song..

Song stories -- Solar System Man

Often a song comes to me out of thin air - I hear it and I have to run and record it before I forget it.  But there's another way songs happen, too.  Your hands find them.  This song, "Solar System Man," is one of those.

I have tried to communicate how strange songwriting is.  It feels like something is channeled through you, because when you are in the zone, you can play things that you can't when you are not.  "Solar System Man" is an illustration of this, too.  I didn't have to work very hard to get the guitar parts down, such as they are.  A real guitarist would do a much better job of what I am trying to do, I admit.  But there's still something to it.

It even happens with bass playing -- maybe especially with bass playing.  If I pick up a bass and just start playing it, I don't even know what to do with it.  I didn't learn how to play that way, I learned by putting a record on the turntable and figuring out songs note for note.  And now, when I construct bass lines, I have to hear them in my head, and then figure them out note for note.

Except when something happens -- something that I have called, "having the Holy Ghost of bass playing descend upon me."  This only happens when I am recording, but when it does, I suddenly can play anything and it fits the song.

Somewhere, something inside me knows a lot more about playing the bass than I do consciously.

Now, let's talk about "Solar System Man."  It started out as a simple pop thing, but I wasn't satisfied with it that way.  For one thing, the comic book, sci-fi theme doesn't fit pop very well.  For another it just seemed to say, "prog me up!"  So I did, in three stages.  First, I constructed the intro, focusing on the vocals but doing some vaguely proggy things with the drums and bass.  After I had this installed, I put it aside for a while.  When I came back to it, I realized that there were notes that I should emphasize with the instrumentation and sing over that in a different way.  I put it aside again, though at some point I figured out one version of the backing vocals and changed it to the "na na na" that you hear now.  In one final fit of prog rage, I constructed the middle section, and layered a new backing vocal part on top of the original.  When I finally re-record the song, those will be combined into one line, instead of being a collage of two as they are now, because it'd be a nice and different backing vocal thing, rather than two somewhat familiar vocal things mashed together.

The lyrics of the song came at me quickly.  It's a humorous song in many ways, but also a bit sad.  Here's how I wrote it up, with the chord changes of the original:

Solar System Man
 in CMaj (Amin)
by DB Donlon
[verse 1]
Am                   Am7           Am6      F6(no 5)
Solar System Man has a plan to save the world
Am                 Am7                               Am6         F6(no 5)
But nobody hears him because he talks too low
Am  Am7           Am6      F6(no 5)
All around him he can see
Am                   Am7                   Am6        F
People going on with their lives as if nothing were happening 

[chorus]
G                      Bb                 C
Solar System Man has a plan
                    Bb           G
But there's no one listening
G                Bb              G
He tries to save the world
          Bb               G
From decomposing
G      Bb     C
Ah -------------
Bb                       G
Solar System Man
G     Bb      C
Ah -------------
Bb
Solar System
Am Am7 Am6 Am(aug)
man.. 

[verse 2]
Am                   Am7           Am6      F6(no 5)
Solar System Man knows the time is growing short
Am                   Am7           Am6      F6(no 5)
He knows that his is an approach of last resort
Am                   Am7           Am6      F6(no 5)
One lonely tear travels toward his chiseled chin
Am                   Am7           Am6      F
All the power to save the world trapped within 

[chorus]
G                      Bb                 C
Solar System Man has a plan
                    Bb           G
But there's no one listening
G                Bb              G
He tries to save the world
          Bb                G
But it's not happening
G      Bb     C
Ah -------------
Bb                       G
Solar System Man
G     Bb      C
Ah -------------
Bb
Solar System
Am Am7 Am6 Am(aug)
man.. 

[Vocal Bridge]
C                       C6(no5)                 C                   C6(no5)
Solar System Man would like to settle down
C                              C6(no5)                      Dm7
Have some kids, get a job and drive an SUV
C                       C6(no5)                 C                   C6(no5)
Solar System Man is feeling old and tired
C                              C6(no5)    Am
Nodding off to sleep with the tv on..
F
Watching reruns  

[Chorus] 

G                      Bb                 C

Solar System Man has a plan
                    Bb           G
But there's no one listening
G                Bb              G
He tries to save the world
          Bb                G
But it's not happening
G      Bb     C
Ah -------------
Bb                       G
Solar System Man
G     Bb      C
Ah -------------
Bb
Solar System
C6(no5)          C6(no3)
Man
C6(no5)          C6(no3)
Solar System Man
C6(no5)          C6(no3)
Solar System Man
Dm7
Won't stop trying to save the
Am
World

The end doesn't go like that anymore and there's an instrumental intro and an extended instrumental bridge now too.

I got the name Solar System Man from my young son Alex, who must've been three or four when he came up with it.  As the music was coming to me, I imagined this comic book character -- an alien, as it happens, but so is Superman so nothing new there -- who attempts to save the earth from our mismanagement, but because we can't hear him, and his own lassitude, he fails (though he doesn't give up, he just wants to.)

But the song really isn't about some alien dude, it's about me, and my inability to translate the creative vision that I have into something people would pay attention to.

Song stories

Going back over these old songs has made me remember quite a few things I'd have forgotten otherwise.  It seems music either holds or unlocks memories -- which is pretty interesting.

Returning to my chronology -- and realizing that few people are going to be interested in the actual songs, let me sketch out what memories they evoke.

Another early song is See You Again, which comes from c1989 or so, give or take a couple of years.  I was able to get my brother to play guitar on that one too, though that version is not the one you can hear.  I was thinking about this, and I can see the bedroom of the house in Charlottesville where I lived where I was writing an earlier song, "Not at This Address," which my brother put a lead guitar part on.  I think this one was written and recorded there too.  That was back in the days of the 4 track recorder, incidentally, so there weren't that many tracks to play around with for me and I couldn't do a good job of cutting and pasting guitar parts if I couldn't play them, which I never could back then.  So I was always relieved when he would take an interest in putting down some guitars.  I couldn't figure out what it was that prompted him to want to do it or not to want to do it, because he was pretty variable about it.

He's older than me by about 18 months, and I am pretty sure it came as a shock that I was born.  I think being parsimonious with his guitar was one way of getting back at me for the egregious injustice that my birth was to him.  I didn't know, or even suspect that at the time, but I had a dream some years ago that made the issue much more plain to me.  Dreams always come into it somewhere for me.

In this one, I had my baby son Alex with me near a shore line.  My brother came along, and somehow he got my son from me and stepped onto a piece of land that broke away from where I was and floated out into the water, receding rapidly.  The look on his face was a mix of naked loathing and triumph.

How do I connect that to how he treated me with music?  Well, that dream came at a time when we were trying to work together on a project, but there were lots of problems that kept coming up.  I was trying to get at the problems, but then something else would happen.  After the dream, it became plain to me -- the problems were part of the plan.  There wasn't ever going to be a musical project.

It wasn't something he was doing consciously, but we are responsible for that unconscious part of ourselves too, so I learned then that I'd be better off working on my own, and I have.  Since that time I've learned how to play the guitar quite a bit better than I used to, and I fudge where I need it.

The song, "See You Again," was written about an ex-girlfriend that I was afraid I'd run into since we lived in the same town.  But as I wrote, it turned into a song about some possibility existing that the relationship could be rekindled.  That wasn't the case in truth, and I didn't want it to be, but the song wanted to be more hopeful about things than I was.  It was one of the first times I ever let a song be what it wanted to be rather than jamming my truth onto it.  I was uncomfortable with the lyrics but I lived with them.  Listening now, I can hear the terrible reverby production I used back then.  But I like how the vocals and backing vocals sit with each other.

Another song that was written at the same time was Stay Around.  I have found that I often write songs in threes.  There were these two and one other that I can't find a copy of right now.  This version of "Stay Around" is the original with my brother's lead guitar playing on it.  Listening to it now, I really like the fills he added in between leads.  I never would have thought of those.

In those days, I had the idea that a song is best when it's had more than one person working on it.  I still believe that.  It's incredibly hard to get anyone interested in collaborating with you when you are as socially awkward and reserved as I am so I don't have a lot of evidence, but I think the little fills and the intricate plucking pattern in the bridge of this song show that it's true.

Now the best part of this tune is the bridge.  It still hits me right when I hear it.  That bass, one of my Rickenbackers, had a good tone for it.  I should have just kept that one!  It was a nice 4003 in white, though it was turning creme with age.  The baseline I have there is just right.

I suppose this song is informed by the many years I spent as a bartender at this time.  I surely served plenty of people who had that "stay around" bonhomie vibe going on.  I never have really had it myself, on account of my aforementioned reservedness.  Most people thought/think that I'm full of myself, and I probably am a little because what artist isn't?  But mostly I'm just another one of those people for whom human contact is work.

40 songs

Portrait of the artist as an old man; db in October 2011

I just spent the morning uploading songs and song fragments that I found on my hard-drives.  All told, there are 40 of them!  And there's more hidden on my drives somewhere.

The songs go back to the mid 1980s.  It's really cool to hear my young voice, warbly as it was.  I can't sing that well now because of ear troubles and asthma.  Listening back, I get a clear sense of how age takes things from you one little bit at a time..

Over the next few days, I want to do a sketch on each tune, going as chronologically as I can.  So with that in mind, first up is "So Long."  I must've written and recorded this song in 1985 or so after meeting a girl I thought quite a bit of.  It ended tragically, of course, but the first flush of new love and impossible longing is evident in the performance.

So Long

I think this was the first time I tried to record with an acoustic guitar.  I had been trying off and on to learn to play the guitar over the years.  I wasn't able to do it, and my brother generously pitched in with the acoustic performance you hear.  The bass is a solid graphite Steinberger -- if you've heard them before you'll recognize that sound immediately.

I first started playing bass in 1980 or 81, I think.  I know it was shortly after Rush's Moving Pictures came out, which I loved as soon as I heard.  I resolved to learn how to play those intricate bass lines, and with a lot of hard work, I did.  Eventually I graduated to Exit Stage Left, the classic Rush live album, which I would play from end to end.

I was in various small bands in Hattiesburg, Mississippi during those years, playing whatever people wanted to hear, and some things that they didn't.  I would try to get the bands to play some Rush tunes, which were not especially popular at the time.  We had a little trouble with the singing -- often I was called on to try it, and my voice wasn't really up to it.  This song brings it all back to me -- all the small, smoky bars where we played Free Bird.  I remember one band was called The Lonesome Bogey Band, after the keyboard player, who went by the nickname Bogey.  Our big original hit at that time was "FOaD" which stands for just what you might think it does.  It wasn't one of mine.  Bands never played my songs.  I wasn't pushy enough to get them into the lineup.

The next tune comes from later on -- probably 1991 or so.  It's called "I will be there."

I will be there

I wrote it thinking of George Harrison, but I can't find anything about it that sounds especially like George now.  I had a tough time with this tune, re-recording it at least three times, which is a lot for me.  Generally, I record something once and move on, whatever it sounds like.  But with this one, I wasn't satisfied and would try it again.  The bass here is a Rickenbacker 4001v63 -- the one that you see in the picture on ReverbNation.  Last I saw, it was still hanging in the local music store I sold it to.  I tried to talk to the owner about buying it back a few years ago but I don't think he wants to part with it.

I was never satisfied with the v63 because it couldn't quite manage the famous tones from Chris Squire or Geddy Lee because it used the new wiring scheme rather than the old one that were in Squire and Lee's basses.  Recently I owned a 4001c64S, and it had that tone.  Even so, I sold the bass because Rickenbackers really only sound like Rickenbackers, and I didn't have the resources to own enough basses to cover all the sounds I wanted to make.  I now use my trusty Made in Korea Tobias that I tricked out with new pickups and all, and also a 2007 Warwick Corvette Standard 5 string, which is so versatile you really would never need another bass.

Now that has gotten me to thinking about the various basses I've owned over the years.  If you aren't a musician, you won't be familiar with a particular malady that infects all musicians to some degree or other.  It's called Gear Acquisition Syndrome, or GAS for short.  You'll be forever chasing a sound that you can hear in your head, but that your gear always fails to produce in just the way you want.

If you are just starting out -- beware!  The sound in your head is a chimera!  It will never be found!  Turn back while you still have your cash!

My first bass was a Peavey t40, which I traded a beautiful Bach silver trombone for.  I still feel pretty guilty about this because my grandpa had given me that trombone as a gift.  I told him that I wanted to make the trade, and he was resistant, but agreed in the end.  Sorry grandpa!  It was a terrible trade on my part.  No recording of that bass survives as far as I know, but I had a real tough time with it.  Mississippi is a notoriously humid place, and most woods will warp there pretty badly.  I don't know what that t40 was made out of, but it would warp so bad it was pitiful.  The salesman at the music store gave me that piece of crap, and a piece of crap amp and fuzz box, for the trombone, and couldn't get me out the door fast enough.  He knew he had made a killing.  Over the years I slowly began to recognize how music store clerks' eyes would light up when they saw me coming.. Easy mark = me.

I'm not sure what came next directly, but it might have been a Rickenbacker.  I've owned four of them.  The Steinberger, of course, and there was a Fender Precision Elite, which showed me that some basses are just too big for my small hands.  I had a Japanese made Fender Jazz which I could kick myself for letting go.  I put some new pickups in it, I don't remember what now, but it turned in to a tone monster.  I'm sure I got rid of it for another Rick..

For a while I had an Ibanez of some sort.  These are more popular now than they were.  Mine was made of such a light wood that it's tone was extremely lacking in muscle, but it was cheap and all I could afford at the time.  I'm pretty sure I have a picture of myself holding it, a very young man at the time.

The author c1982

I don't know what that expression is supposed to mean.  I know I was nervous because we were playing with a really good drummer at the time and were hoping to get him to stick with us.  It was a no go.

Looking at that bass, I remember at that time I had an obsession with making sure my bass had 24 frets.  I used to use all of them too, with the weird all-bass songs I would do.  I wonder if I can turn one of those up?

LATE EDIT:

I found a couple more songs that are pretty old.  This one comes from 1992, and I wrote it for the girl who became my girlfriend and then my wife.

How I love you (Oh Donna)

You can hear all the work I put into that.  I remember being immensely proud when I was finished.  It is a little over-produced and under-engineered, but I still like it today.  I really enjoy the youthful fervor you can hear in it.  Even if you didn't understand English you'd know it's a song that celebrates something.

I recall that Donna hated it.  But she never has liked my music, except for the odd exception here and there.

Another that may actually be older than So Long up above is She's a Parallelogram.  It must be from 1985 or thereabouts.  I remember I had a bunch of songs like this one -- quirky and weird, but very 80s.