And now for something completely different.

Dear Reader, this week's song is VERY SILLY.

No, seriously. It's probably simultaneously the best and worst song I have ever written. Best, because it's awesome, and worst, because it's profoundly stupid.

It was inspired, as most brilliant things are, by cheese. Specifically, a study carried out by the British Cheese Board about how cheese affects our dreams. (Sweet Dreams Are Made of Cheese, September 2005)

(By the way, how awesome is it that such a thing as the British Cheese Board exists? How do you get on that board, because it sounds like the best job ever. I am so delighted. Is the chairman of the board called the Big Cheese?)

Pictured: British cheese

The study found that peoples' dreams were influenced by the type of cheese they ate before bed. (Read the link, it's impossible to make this stuff up.) I was particularly interested in the dreams people, specifically women, had when eating Stilton:

A massive 85% of females who ate Stilton had some of the most bizarre dreams of the whole study – although none were described as bad experiences. Highlights included talking soft toys, lifts that move sideways, a vegetarian crocodile upset because it could not eat children, dinner party guests being traded for camels, soldiers fighting with each other with kittens instead of guns and a party in a lunatic asylum.

This week's song is not about cheese, however. What inspired this song was the subject matter of one of the dreams described above.

More on that later. This song was also the most "technical" that I've done so far, meaning that it initially took more than just noodling about on my guitar for a few minutes to get the chords just right. The original melody was very sort of jazzy, a very different sort of music than what I'm used to playing, and on my own, I simply could not find any chords that sounded good--at all! It was quite frustrating. I sought help from a friend (who turns out to know way more about music theory than I realized? Thanks, Eric!) who offered some very helpful advice, which I sort of followed. I worked out the notes of the melody on my piano (which I have hitherto used almost exclusively to tune my guitar and expand my dust collection) and then tried to use those notes to find chords that didn't sound awful.

It almost worked. I was able to find some chords that fit the attitude and personality of the song, but it was still overall...messy. I didn’t like it, and felt that by and large, it still didn’t sound the way I wanted it to. There were also a ton of 7 chords (C7, G7, D7) which might actually be okay, but for some reason it felt Wrong to me to have them all in there.

So I completely changed the melody. It’s simpler and more repetitive, still essentially conveys the same attitude I was going for originally, and was MUCH easier to find chords for. I am actually SO PLEASED with this song, largely due to how goofy it is.

So without further ado, I bring you the story of the vegetarian crocodile!

I just want to register my pride that this video required all of ONE TAKE. It helps that it was just two lines repeated over and over and the words were right in front of me.

I also like the idea of a war being fought with kittens. I think there would probably be too much cooing and squealing going on to get any actual fighting done.

No idea what next week's song is going to be able. Y'ALL WILL JUST HAVE TO WAIT AND SEE.

What are you, new? Go to the first post to find out what this blog is all about!