This is still my swan song.

I decided I'd do two things today: bake cookies (or apple cake) and update this blog. Well, I haven't yet baked anything, but I'll be damned if I let slide the latter!

But the concert I went to last night gave me a splurt of inspiration which I can channel here, so. I'm doing something similar to the last post I made (way back in early October--I suck at this!) where I cover a song by a musician I admire: this time it's Chris Pureka.

Here's what happened last night: I was going to see the band Girlyman perform (for the umpteenmillionth time) at the Iron Horse in Northampton, MA. I stood in line for about an hour before the doors opened (as usual) in order to get a good seat. As I stood outside in the waning November sunlight, I could hear the band warming up and doing sound-checks. Sweet sounds.

Then the tone changed. It didn't sound like Girlyman's guitars anymore, and it wasn't any of their voices.

I thought, "Hang on--that sounds like Chris Pureka!"

Then I got really really excited. Could it be that Chris Pureka could be making an appearance with Girlyman? There had been no indication of this on the internet or anything I'd seen about the show, so maybe they were planning a surprise for us.

Even though she's originally from Northampton and plays venues around here several times a year, I have never actually managed to see Chris Pureka perform live. But I really love her music. It is soulful and complex and full of feelings (ALL OF THE FEELINGS). Her lyrics are beautiful, with a tendency towards the multi-syllabic (all the over-encrypted poetry / unintelligible tales of the truth) and tell such rich stories. When I think of what I want to be as a musician, basically what I want to be is Chris Pureka, only maybe a bit more cheerful. (The vast majority of her songs are quite melancholy.)

So I bounced around in my sudden excitement out in the cold, and when the show started, Nate Borofsky of Girlyman got up onstage and announced that there would be a surprise guest--their dear friend Chris Pureka would be opening up for them with a few songs!

(Of course, I don't know how this was organized. But I like to imagine that Chris showed up at the Iron Horse a few hours before the show and said, "Hey dudes, want me to play with you tonight?" And Girlyman said "OMG YES!!")

As much as I love Girlyman, I think Chris's three songs were probably the highlight of the evening for me. She's a gorgeous person (second only to Amy Ray in my heart when it comes to phenomenal and sexy lesbian musicians) and such a great performer. Also she sang my favorite of her songs ("Swann Song," about her grandmother who was a nurse in the Navy), which helped.

Chrisssss will you go to prom with meeeeee??

Most of her guitar work is really complex and well beyond my abilities, but a while back I learned her song "Burning Bridges," because it's a good song with relatively simple chords and I could make it sound okay even with the simplest strumming pattern. I've since come to love other songs of hers even more than this one, but it's the only one I know with any great fluidity! It's also a very angry song, which is not something that I do very often.

A few posts back I said that the reason I've been neglecting this blog is that I got a new job that I enjoyed and I got a cat, and because I was no longer miserable I no longer had anything to write about. It is absolutely true that those occurrences (job + cat) correspond directly with the period of time at which I stopped regularly updating, and in retrospect I realize that a lot of the songs I wrote over the summer found their sources in feelings of frustration, helplessness, and longing, which were all things I felt when I was stuck in that ridiculous shoestore gig (and also didn't have a cat).

On the other hand, being content with my employment situation (which I'm not, actually, on the whole, but for other reasons) is no cause for me to stop writing music. While misery produces great art, there are so many other emotions that I can channel into creative output. So I'm going to work on that. Especially seeing all those incredible musicians last night reminded me that this is really something I need to keep doing. I already have a new song mostly written which hopefully I'll be able to post next week, though the lyrics still need a lot of work.

Have I mentioned my cat? And how she's awesome, and makes me happy by existing?
Maybe I will write a song about her. It will be the fluffiest, purringest,
jumpingest of songs!

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

We sing to the dogs or whoever

I'm trying something different this week: I didn't end up writing a new song, so I'm posting a cover of a musician I like and admire and will write a bit about him and what it is about his music that moves and inspires me. If this is successful, I might start doing it more frequently, as filler for when I don't manage to write my own song.

The musician I'm writing about this week is Josh Ritter. (I'm going to marry him some day!)

Front row, whoo!

Josh Ritter is a remarkable musician, yes, but in my opinion he is, first and foremost, a masterful story-teller. The stories he weaves through his songs are exquisite, heart-breaking, inspired, and so human--human, yes, even if it's a love story between a mummy and an archaeologist, or a conversation between Sir Galahad and the angel Gabriel. Boyish good looks and great musical ability aside, I think that what I love most about Josh Ritter is his lyrics. I truly envy his way with words.

It's hard to describe exactly what it is about Josh Ritter's lyrics that are so captivating, so I'll let them speak for themselves. Here are some examples of beautiful Ritter lyrics...

The stain of the sepia of the butcher Crimea
Through the wreck of a brass band I thought I could see her
In a cake walk she came through the dead and the lame
Just a little bird floating on a hurricane
(To the Dogs or Whoever)

I'm inside with my friends
We build fires and pretend
That the night could just bend on forever
While outside in the frost
Are the wolves and the lost
And we sing to the dogs or whoever
(Empty Hearts)

(Yeah you read that right...the title of one song appears as a lyric in another. I've never really been able to figure that out.)

I was thinking 'bout my river days
I was thinking 'bout me and Jim
Passing Cairo on a getaway
With every steamboat like a hymn

Out on the desert now I'm feeling lost
The bonnet wears a wire albatross
Monster ballads and the stations of the cross
Sighing just a little bit
(Monster Ballads)

Then one night you found me in my army-issue cot
And you told me of your flash of inspiration
You said fusion was the broken heart that's lonely's only thought
And all night long you drove me wild with your equations.
(The Temptation of Adam)

I've got a girl in the war, Paul, her eyes are like champagne
They sparkle bubble over and in the morning all you've got is rain
(Girl in the War)

It's a Bible or a bullet they put over your heart
It's getting harder and harder to tell them apart.
(Thin Blue Flame)

These are by no means my sole favorite lyrics or songs that he's written, because that's a really hard call to make. (If I had to pick a favorite song, it would probably be "Good Man" or "Wolves.") This man somehow comes up with these beautiful phrases that paint such vivid pictures--some of those words used are so simple, but put them together and they tell a wonderful story. The great thing is that he doesn't try to over-tell the story or explain too much: he gives exactly as much information as is necessary to understand the premise, and through that it suddenly becomes utterly complex.

My favorite example of this is "The Temptation of Adam," a song about a man and a woman who fall in love living in a missile silo. The context is not entirely clear, but you get the idea that there's some sort of nuclear war going on, and the man's job is to launch the missile when the signal is given. None of that is explained in the song, though: Josh Ritter seems to be a great believer in the rule of "show, don't tell," and he uses this to great effect. He doesn't waste breath on a chorus explaining "Tra la la, there's a nuclear holocaust, World War III, the government has assigned me to this task, etc." Instead he uses phrases like "army-issue cot" and "ransack[ing] the rations" to indicate the official nature of this mission, and lines like "You would keep the warhead missile silo good as new / And I'd watch you with my thumb above the button" to describe the living situation.

(Incidentally, one of my favorite Josh Ritter lyrics appears in this song: in describing his feelings for the woman, the narrator sings, "I never had to learn to love her like I learned to love the bomb / She just came along and started to ignore me.")

I'm rambling, I know, but if I was to put my feelings about Josh Ritter in the simplest possible terms, I would say that I wish I could write lyrics the way he does, and capture that kind of emotion.

Anyway, the song I've covered is called "Wolves," which I previously mentioned as one of my favorite songs of his, did you notice? It's a really fun song to play and has such fantastical imagery (wolves in the piano, wolves underneath the stairs!). I see blue when I hear this song--the dark blue of the night sky, the silvery-blue of the light around the moon, the ice blue of the snow at night.

Okay then. I do have an original song in the works, but it's coming very slowly--a few lines jotted down here and there, every few days. Hopefully at some point in the next week I might have some kind of inspiration dump that will help me finish it and post it, but if I don't get it done in time for next Thursday, I'll probably make another post like this one. 

Here, have another Josh Ritter video, BECAUSE THIS VIDEO IS GORGEOUS.

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

But I'm BACK AGAIN, said Maggie, with a monumental crash.

Hello, dear readers! After an unforeseen, unintentional, and wholly unnecessary absence, I'm BACK. I'm sure all three of you are thrilled.

I'm sorry it's taken me so long to update. For the past month or so, I simply haven't felt much inspiration or need to write. I've barely even picked up my guitar! But I'm getting back into the groove of it, and am all the happier for it.

Various life events which may or may not have contributed to my lack of musical motivation:
*I left my slimy job at the shoe store and returned to a job I love, meaning I no longer have any source material for being miserable and am no longer so desperate for creative outlet in the face of crushing conformity.
*I got a kitten (!!!) which makes me really happy and also means I have less time to focus on things since she's always vying for my attention. (Though I've discovered that my guitar seems to intrigue and confuse her. Just now she tried to crawl into my lap while I was playing it, and then, when it was lying on my bed, she jumped on top of it and batted at the strings.)

Anyway, talking about music.

This one time I saw the band Girlyman perform (hahaha that's supposed to be funny because I've seen them like four times). In introducing a particular song, Doris, one of the musicians, talked about how people always assumed that the song was about her own experiences, when it actually wasn't. "I'm a writer," she said, "and that means that sometimes I write fiction. It's not always autobiographical."

Sometimes I write fiction, too, and sometimes I when I write I draw directly from my own life. (This song and this song are good examples of the two extremes.) I've decided I'm not going to explain much about this week's song, and I'm not going to say which category (fiction or autobiography) it falls under. I was even hesitant to post it at all, since I don't want it to be misinterpreted, but it's been so long since I posted anything that I figured it ought to go up, regardless.

I will do my best not to allow for any long breaks in the future; I already have a song fomenting for next week. It occurs to me that I'm very close to reaching the goal of this blog: my aim was for twelve new songs, and I only have two more to go! (This week is week 12, but there were those two weeks in July where I posted songs that had already been written.)

Probably after my goal has been reached, I will keep posting new songs when they occur, but I'll stop apologizing for long breaks in between. =P

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

Who do I have to knife to get things done around here??

Dear Reader, this week I bring you a Very Serious song about a topic near and dear to my heart.

I don't have OCD, far from it. I am just chronically organized. Jamie calls me a "non-compulsive tidier." It's true!

If there is one thing I loathe above all else among my host of #firstworldproblems, it is a sink full of dirty dishes that has been sitting there for a day or two, while the person responsible goes blithely about their day. Friends, if you have time to cook and eat an elaborate meal, you have time to wash the dishes. If you don't have time to wash the dishes, you shouldn't be cooking and eating an elaborate meal. Leaving a sink full of dirty dishes so that your fellow house-dwellers a) cannot use those dishes and b) cannot use the sink is rude and disrespectful. (This is just my opinion.)

"A sponge, motherf**ker, can you use it?!"

I told Jamie that when our new housemates move in, I am going to make it abundantly clear that I can and will write passive-aggressive and/or just plain aggressive, profanity-laden notes when the dishes don't get cleaned in a timely manner. Jamie said, "You should write a song about washing the dishes!"

And so I did. (Jamie insists on being credited for supplying the idea. There you go, Jamie.)

Maybe I will sing my new housemates this song.

I have so many feelings. 

Once, many years ago, maybe at the Old Songs Festival, I heard someone making an affectionately snide comment about songs that only use three chords, and for some reason this stuck with me to such an extent that I do my best to avoid it. I believe that in every song that I have posted so far on this blog, I have used four (or more??) chords. This song, however, breaks that trend: I only managed to work in three chords. It happens to the best of us, and I am far from the best!

I notice that I make eye contact with the camera a lot more in this video. (I hardly ever do that because I usually sing with my eyes closed.) I guess the eye contact serves to emphasize the message that I'm trying to get across!

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

How To Climb A Mountain

So it's 10:30 at night and I'm very sleepy, and I just remembered that I need to throw together a blog post. I recorded the song this morning, that means I'm done, right??

And now I am sitting at the cluttered kitchen table, the only light coming from my computer screen and the white Christmas lights strung around the ceiling. I am typing to the dulcet tones of Jamie munching on Tuscan white bread spread with my mama's homemade blueberry-maple jam. It's a lovely, comfortable setting, and it occurs to me that at some point I should record a few blog videos from my kitchen, since it's pretty much my favorite room in the house.

On the other hand, I'm not sure how much of a hipster that would make me, a disillusioned 20-something blogging from her kitchen.

ANYWAY. This week's song is about mountains, in a metaphorical sense. Whenever I get anxious over having to do something lengthy and difficult--such as working nine-hour shifts through Sidewalk Sales, or completing all my finals at the end of a semester--my mother puts it into perspective for me by turning it into a mountain. "You're at the bottom of the mountain and the summit is a long way up, and when you look all the way to the top, it can seem like an impossible climb. But if you just focus only on each step at a time, each small task on its own, it'll become a lot easier."

Goddammit. 

So I think about each final paper on it's own, rather than the sum of all the pages I have to write. A shift at work is not eight endless hours stretching on into the evening: it is one hour, then the next, then another. In one more hour, I'll go get some tea. In one more hour, it'll be half-way through the day. In one more hour, I can take my break.

Semesters and jobs aside, I've found that this is a good way to look at a lot of distasteful but necessary things in life. Nonetheless, it's sometimes hard to draw back from the big picture and look at it as anything less than the sum of all the parts, rather than each part individually. While I'm climbing that mountain, it's really difficult not to let my gaze get carried up to the top, mentally measuring the distance between myself and the endpoint.

This was one of those awesome songs that basically wrote itself. As soon as I got the idea--less actual words or music and more of just an image of a mountain in my mind--the was essentially already there, fully formed, melody and all. I love it when that happens, but it sort of make me wonder where the song is coming from, since I feel like I contributed so little to it: it simply sprang from the depths of my mind on its own!

I'm sorry for the video quality this week. I feel like the lighting is sort of off, a little too bright and/or washed out. I think what this basically means is that I shouldn't record in the late morning. Early afternoon or evening is where it's at!

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

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!

In which an apology is offered.

Whelp, sorry about that. I guess seven weeks was a good run for not missing a single Thursday, yeah? I tried recording this week's song after work yesterday but my microphone was acting wonky so I kept having to re-do takes and then I was tired and hungry and just decided to leave it.

Look at me! I'm so ashamed!

I'm in a lot better mood today, and have managed to put together what I believe to be an acceptable take. This is kind of annoying because while I'm pleased with the song, I don't really like how I sound singing it.

But I tried to capture how I feel about summer, and how beautiful and short it is, and how I try to make the most of the season as possible. (And sometimes my arms get all scratched up from picking blackberries, and I look like I've been wrestling with a pallas cat or something...)

I have a few ideas for next week: either a song I've been wanting to write for a while, or one that I just got inspiration for today. I'm sure they'll both turn up eventually, it's just a matter of which comes first. I suppose it depends on which one I get the most inspiration from.

I keep meaning to write a post on inspiration. I keep meaning to write posts on a lot of things. Maybe I'll actually get around to doing that, one of these days.

An inspiration to us all.

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

SHINY TOYS: In Which a New Friend is Introduced

DUDES DUDES LOOK WHAT I GOT.

You've achieved +5 Hipster Cred! Level Up!

On Sunday I went and got this RAD BANJO off of Craigslist and now I know like three chords but I can't really remember them, I'd have to look them up in my book. G is easy, that's just an open strum. *hop*

I was going to name it Django because while yes, I know that's totally inappropriate for this particular breed of stringed instrument, Django both sort of rhymes with "banjo" and is vaguely onomatopoeic.* But Mother Dearest vetoed this emphatically ("Django is NOT a banjo name. No, no, no. Do not sully the name of the Almighty Django by affixing it to a banjo!") and suggested Suzannah, which I actually rather like, so I'll probably stick with that. Suzanna the banjo! (I like how you can see my guitar peeking out from under my thumbs-up in the picture. Don't worry, Persephone, you're still my one and only!)

ANYWAY the banjo may or may not make an appearance at some point in a few months once I've figured out how the hell it works. I shall have to dress up in a snazzy suit, in the event. 

LADIES.

ANYWAY on to this week's song. Because I am still working millions of hours, I bring you: 2010 SONG OF THE YEAR. That is, the one and only good song I wrote in 2010. (In fact, it might be the ONLY song I wrote in 2010. Remember what I said back in the beginning about my paltry output?) It is a song about love, and death, and war, and it would have taken only one shot to record, but then my microphone started pooping all over the place and I had to do a couple re-takes to get it right.

I've found that I really miss writing songs and working them out every week, so I'm really hoping that my work schedule will calm down and I'll be able to get back to that next week. I already have some ideas for a new song which I should really write down, which I think I might be able to turn into something that I'm not ashamed of.

Had an interesting surprise the other day: I was flipping through an old three-ring binder of sheet music from various choral ventures of my past, and in the very back I found a bunch of songs and poetry I'd written between approximately the ages of 12 and 15. Heaven help me, I had no idea that stuff was still around and capable of seeing the light of day.  I may have to post some of it here, to embarrass myself and to prove to you all that my songwriting skill really has improved over the past ten years!

By the by, friends, I found this really cool graphic of the Ira Glass quote that helped inspire this blog. I think it might be a poster in which case I would love to have it for my wall, but I can't figure out where to find it.

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

*That's the first time I've spelled "onomotapoeic" correctly on the first try! Be proud of me! Writing this footnote was the second time!

True Musicianship, and Coming Down from the Tower

Throughout the writing of this blog, I have established that I am a Real Musician because:

*It sometimes takes me hours to record a single song.
*I am frequently dissatisfied with my work.
*My day job gets in the way of my music-making.

That last one is especially pertinent this week, since working 40 hours means that I'm too tired and don't really have the time or mental capacity to write a whole new song. So I dug out an old song I wrote back in high school to share with you all! It tells the story of a popular fairy tale--I'm sure you'll be able to figure out which one!

I was thinking that it would be interesting to compare this song to the ones I've written recently and see how my songwriting has developed over the years, but I realized--from the sound and feel of this song, my songwriting hasn't changed all that much! Which is a bit discouraging, since one would hope that my skills would have evolved somewhat since I was sixteen or seventeen years old. But, to be fair, this is one of the better songs I wrote back then, and I haven't written all that much since. Now that I'm trying to write a song a week, I hope to see more of an evolution occur...eventually.

It's interesting to think how, back in, say, middle school, when I was in fifth or sixth grade, I wrote so many songs. I had a big three-ring binder filled with several dozen songs I had written; I was constantly coming up with new songs! Most of them weren't very good by today's standards, of course, and I didn't play guitar back then so I didn't have that aspect to dwell upon, but sometime I wonder: where did that go? How did I lose the ability to be so prolific? To revisit the Ira Glass quote that inspired this blog, I think what probably happened was that as I grew older, I raised my standards and acquired better taste. My songs didn't seem so good anymore, and I started to become more critical of my output and of what ideas I would allow to survive.

In the course of a recent entry in Amanda Palmer's blog (discussing a songwriting clinic she did for the summer program at Berklee) she mentioned a Leonard Cohen quote that she keeps taped up next to her piano:

"I have to finish it in order to know whether it deserves to survive."

I think this is excellent advice that I need to employ in my own songwriting. I shouldn't simply condemn songs the moment I encounter a snag in their writing. I should plow through and see it to its completion before I decide whether or not it's actually crap.

ANYWAY. I know what you're all really here for.

The title of this blog post includes the phrase "coming down from the tower" both because it pertains to the song (see what I did there!) and also because the theme of emergence is central to this blog and this project. I have been locking myself up in a metaphorical tower, both musically (my personal standards being so high that it's difficult to actually complete a song) and in terms of audience, hardly allowing anyone else but myself to hear the music I'm creating. So now, like Rapunzel, I am descending from the tower and out into the big wide world, letting everyone see not only my creative output, but my creative process as well! Gee whiz!

You helped me let my hair down, now I know what love can be!

Next week will be another older song, thought not as old as this week. (Will probably be 2010 Song of the Year, i.e. the one decent song I wrote in 2010.) Time to add another bullet to the list of reasons why I'm a Real Musician: I miss writing songs!

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

Because dancing around a bonfire of shoes, that's why.

I recently wrote out a list of things I want to do with my life (i.e. things I would rather be doing than working my slimy retail job), and one of the items was "dance around a bonfire of disgustingly over-priced shoes while ululating." What a splendid idea!

These shoes cost $300.
These shoes cost $300.
These shoes cost $300.
LET'S BURN THEM.

My unhappiness in my job is growing steadily with every passing day. It's not a bad job, all in all--good pay, not too busy, intelligent boss, nice coworkers. It's the environment and mentality of the store that makes my skin crawl: trying to get people to spend as much money as possible on fancy shoes. I just want to create beautiful things and make people happy; trying to increase my average sale doesn't factor into that, in my universe.

The song I wrote for this week reflects all of that. It is a song that my boss must never hear! I just don't think that would go over well. In this song, I combine my frustration with my job with ideas of what I'd rather be doing.

Musically, it's pretty simple, the guitar especially, since it's just four chords repeated over and over, but I really like the way it sounds. I'm quite pleased with how the song turned out, in fact! The only thing I'm unsure about is that there are two "you"s to whom the narrator sings: one "you" is antagonistic and "one" is friendly. There's no explicit distinction between them, but I hope it should be clear that it's two different entities being sung at, rather than the same one, as that wouldn't make sense.

I should note that I've been battling a nasty cold all week and lost my voice for about four days. Every day and in every way I am getting better and better, but my voice isn't still in tip-top shape. So that's why I sound a little strained and brittle this week.

Next week is my first 40-hour work week, and as I discussed last week, I'm not going to try and write a song on top of that, so I'll be posting a previously-written piece. I recently "rediscovered" a song that I wrote back in high school that I really like, so I'll probably do that one.

I also have been meaning to write a blog post about musical complexity/simplicity/complexity-hidden-in-simplicity, so hopefully that will turn up at some point in the next week or so.

For the rest of my life, this is how I will react when confronted with a
pair of fancy, expensive shoes.

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

I'm not quitting my day job, but that doesn't mean I can't gripe about it.

Friends, my friends! I have come up with something EXTREMELY CLEVER.

Heretofore, I have been penning songs in my notebook on the front and back of a single sheet of paper. Over the past few weeks, as I've been having to learn my songs much more quickly than previously (wheee deadlines) this has proven to be inconvenient and unwieldy, as it necessitates pausing in the middle of a song to turn the page. I can't do that while I'm recording!

Boo, hiss.

So then I struck upon the very clever idea of writing the lyrics on two facing sheets of paper! That way the book can lie open in front of me and I don't have to turn any messy pages! Gee whiz, what a fantastic invention! 

"I'm not wearing any pants!"

Ahem, anyway. That song you see there in the second picture is the one I am singing for you this week! This is a song that I know for a fact, beyond a shadow of a doubt, is unfinished. The melody is fine, the words are fine, but they're not exactly as I want them. Especially the last verse--I think I get the message across, but it doesn't quite convey what I want it to. (Also I want to make it more about the foxes.) So I will continue working on it and hopefully post a revised version later this summer. (Possibly at the end of July--more on that later.)

The aforementioned clever trick with my notebook is why I'm looking down for the entire song. I should figure out a way to prop it up.

This week more than any other I felt that my job was hampering my ability to churn out a song. "Darnit, if I didn't have to do to work today, I'd have time to come up with a new melody and bash out chords for it!" That's right: my day job is getting in the way of my creative output. I guess this is further evidence that I am a Real Musician At Last.

I can't even work on songs in my head while I'm at work because the music my boss insists on playing is so godawful. =(

And now, about the end of July: the third and fourth weeks of July I am working 40 and 38 hours, respectively, and I seriously doubt that I'll be able to come up with entire new songs those weeks. So my plan is to write a song I've already written one week, and then a cover of someone else's song another week. (Probably something by Amanda Palmer or Josh Ritter. I'll try not to play "Wagon Wheel," but hey, it might happen!) Perhaps I'll even manage to bash out a revised version of this week's song.

Then I'll extend this whole project another two weeks so that I can end up with the requisite twelve new songs by the end of it. Sound good? (It had better; this ain't a democracy, here!)

I currently have no idea what next week's song will be like. Hooray!

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

"Living Loud" has a price: I'm bloody exhausted.

On approximately Monday, I tweeted, "Oh man this week's blog-song is going to succckkkkk >_<"

The next day-ish, Jamie said to me, "So what's this I hear about this week's song sucking?"

I hemmed and hawed and grumbled something like, "I'm just really unhappy with how it's turning out."

To which Jamie replied, "Aha, you're a true musician at last!"

Touche, my love.

I also didn't have as much time to work on this song. I scribbled down the first verse or so on Thursday or Friday, and then totally neglected it until Monday when I realized, "Shoot! I have a deadline!" I finished the lyrics Monday morning, bashed out the chords Monday night, and then tweeted in despair.


I guess it's not so bad. In fact, since Monday I've worked out the wrinkles (ew that bridge really is not working, I'll just tweak it so that it's the same melody as the rest of the verses oh there that's better) and played it enough to have gotten used to how it sounds, so I don't actually really mind it anymore.

But it was a close one. There were a few moments when I thought that I might just scrap the whole thing and post a video of a song I wrote, like, a year ago. But that would have been cheating; that's not what I made this blog to do. This blog is about writing crappy songs that I'm not really satisfied with and posting them as testament to my creative output. It's fine enough to share the nice songs you write every few months; it's another thing entirely to share every song, even the less-than-good ones. By forcing myself to finish a song, even when I don't think it's very good, I am in some small way triumphing over the roadblock of Not Good Enough and hopefully gaining tools that will help me write even better songs in the future.

This song is kind of about Amanda Palmer, and how I didn't get to see her last Saturday. The first verse and first chorus are pretty much about that, attempting to capture the frenetic, excited feeling, and then the downfall as I accepted that I would not be able to go, that I had to be an adult and do Adult Things like go to work. I was going to continue in that vein and it was going to be another kind of depressing song, but then I thought, "Fuck it," and decided I shan't be growing up any time soon. So there you go.

I'm kind of exhausted because it took me nearly an hour and a half to get an acceptable video on an evening when I was already tired. It took long enough that I had to take a break and look up the food chemistry behind kombucha with Jamie. I lost track of how many attempts it took; let's just say that a little chord-and-lyric sheet (like the one I had the wherewithal to make last week) would have been immensely useful. (All of this is to explain the little cheer at the end.)

I already have an idea and even a couple verses for next week's song, so hopefully it won't feel quite so last-minute as this one did. It will NOT be about current events.

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

How NOT to Deal With Positive Feedback

I'm having trouble getting used to the idea of "putting myself out there" as a musician and creative person. Art always been something I've kept to myself. My music has been such a personal thing for so long, that sharing it with other people and receiving their reactions is not an easy thing on multiple levels, even when those reactions are positive ones.

When I was small, and I'd present my parents with things of my own creation--dolls, drawings, little songs--they would, of course, immediately begin heaping on the praise. "Oh, Maggie, it's wonderful! I love it! It's beautiful! Oh, you've done such a good job!" ...and similar adulation. This invariably made me uncomfortable and cross; there was something about this seemingly overblown applause that just annoyed me. It wasn't that I felt I didn't deserve it, I just didn't like that it was all directed at me.

So when I wanted to share with my parents something I'd made or written, I started prefacing it with something along the lines of, "Okay, I'm going to show you this, but don't get all praisey-praise about it." No praisey-praise! So then Mom and Dad would take on mock-stoicism, and with great solemnity say things like, "Oh yes, this is very nice. It's good. Good job." And this, naturally, would annoy me even more. "Not like that! Just be normal!"

Praise and accolades still make me uncomfortable. This morning, when I was starting to compose this blog entry in my head (some twelve hours before I was actually able to sit down and write it) I tried to pinpoint just what it is that makes me squirm and wince when people tell me, "Your songs are amazing! You're such a good singer! This is beautiful!" I think the fear of this kind of reaction is one of the things that has kept me from widely sharing my music for so long, which is kind of funny, considering that most people probably fear the opposite reaction.

I don't really know what it is. Probably on some level, I feel like I don't deserve it. Oh come on, I'm not that good, you hear way better than me on Pandora; I'm really not that great a guitar player. Please, stop.

So I guess I need to get over that. Sincere, positive reactions are a good thing, because it lets me know I'm doing something right. A certain someone, who is apparently industriously promoting his blog to his friends, said to me yesterday, simply, "People like your music." Considering that this blog currently features all of two songs, I'm going to take this as a good sign.

The other thing that occurred to me this morning, while sorting out my thoughts, is that NOT "going all praisey-praise" is really fucking hard when faced with something beautiful that you love. The first time I heard Bruce Springsteen's Live in New York City album, I flailed all over my dad's couch in paroxysms of joy. The final song on Bon Iver's new album regularly sends tears streaming down my cheeks, and maybe that's just been PMS, actually, but I also take every opportunity to gush at people about how I'm physically incapable of stopping listening to the album.

So it's okay for me to get all praisey-praise about other artists, but my friends and family aren't allowed to get all praisey-praise at me? Younger Me should have cut my parents some more slack.

I think my point in this is that this journey is hard for me in ways aside from merely the job of churning out a song every week. (Ohohoh, wait until tomorrow, there will be whining and self-deprecation!) But every difficulty presents an opportunity for growth, and maybe by the end of all this I'll find it easier to accept the concept that people actually like the things I create.

This would be a great spot for a picture of four-year-old me playing the ukulele my grandmother gave me for Christmas one year, but I don't have any of those on my computer so we'll just have to settle for this picture from last spring. 

Now I know what Real Musicians feel like!

Last week I recorded the song in two takes--one take to mess up, and one to get it right.

This week it took ten takes. Take three was pretty decent and I didn't make any mistakes, but I'm still not totally fluid with the transitions into B-minor chord, so there were all these pauses while I shifted my fingers and that didn't make me happy. I solved the problem by switching to playing D in all the placed I'd previously played B-m, and the pauses were gone. The song no longer has quite the same sound as it did originally, but it still works.

So then once I was used to playing D, I kept futzing around with light sources (apparently I care about that kind of thing now?) and kept getting the words and/or chords wrong, so it took a few more takes. I figure that I should keep all my aborted attempts and at the end of this project, string them together into a blooper reel. (I suspect is will consist mostly of me yelling "FUCK" and/or flailing wildly upon the strings and/or gazing into the camera with wide eyes and a manic grin as I get ready for yet another take.)

ANYWAY. The song. In my last post I mentioned that this one is about current events...and whaddaya know, they're the same current events that I spent most of aforementioned previous post pondering. I began writing this song when Clarence Clemons first had his stroke, when I was feeling all wibbly and oh-god-he-has-to-get-better. Such was my conviction that his recovery was imminent, that the initial version of the song had a decidedly more hopeful tone. (It also contained a Doctor Who reference. Make of that what you will. I removed it.) Then Mr. Clemons died, and some of the stuff I'd written in the song didn't really make sense anymore.

But I've noticed that I'm basically incapable to writing a truly depressing and hopeless song, so it does look up a bit in the end. (The title reflects this.)

And there you have it. Next week: ????

In other musical news, guess what, I won a ticket to see Amanda Palmer at a super-secret, exclusive, invite-only show new Boston THIS SATURDAY!! I KNOW RIGHT HOW AWESOME IS THAT. Too bad I can't go because my boss won't let me leave work early!

Amanda Fucking Palmer disapproves of your shenanigans.

...Thus dashing my hopes of become AFP's BFF and getting her to pimp this blog on her Twitter. (What?! I have dreams!)

So I will probably Make The Adult Decision and earn karma points by forfeiting my ticket to let someone else have an amazing time at the amazing concert.

Actually, next week's song may very well be about that.

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

The house band in Heaven must be rock rock rockin' at Heaven's door

They say you can't take it with you
But I think that they're wrong
'Cause I woke up this morning
And something big was gone.
--Bruce Springsteen, "Terry's Song"

I took a walk last night. I watched a magnificent apricot sun set over the Connecticut River with my feet dangling in the water, and then walked most of the way home barefoot, listening to my iPod. Around 8:30, "Jungleland" came on, from Bruce Springsteen's Live in New York City album. Part-way through the song is Clarence Clemon's killer saxophone solo. That solo is epic. It is smooth and rough and golden and buttery--I could spread that sax solo on bread, mix it in with my mashed potatoes, stir it into a roux, and that would be the healthiest damn meal EVER.

When I was walking last night and listening to Clarence play his sax, I thought to myself, "Man, I am so glad Clarence Clemons is getting better. I don't know what the fuck we're going to do if he dies."

I got home, turned on my computer, and saw the headlines: Clarence Clemons, Springsteen's Soulful Sideman, dies at 69.

He'd died around 7:00pm (due to complications from a massive stroke he'd suffered on June 12th), approximately an hour and a half before "Jungleland" on my iPod, so it wasn't like there was some kind of cosmic link that caused me to revel in his power at the exact moment he'd passed from this earthly plane. At the same time, it felt just a little bit like the Universe was watching me and saying, "o hai, i see you has a wound, here let me rub salt on it kthx."

Those who know me well know that I have a massive girl-boner for anything having to do with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. My iTunes playlist of  my favorite Springsteen songs is almost seven hours long (the playlist itself being titled "Bruceasaurus Rex"). There is something about the music those Jersey boys make that simply sends me into fits of wild joy; some of the songs make me feel like I could dance through the rest of my life, others make me sob. Most of all they make me feel. I think that's what makes me love them so much: I feel the music so deeply, the breadth and depth of emotion is right there, so open and raw, shameless and sincere. (The writer Chuck Klosterman, whom I adore in every aspect but for the fact that he doesn't like Springsteen much, once complained that what he dislikes about the Boss is that he is "too earnest." But this is precisely what I love about him!)

Basically, there's a lot to love about Springsteen and his band. I've only seen them once in concert (August 22, 2009, Comcast Stadium in Mansfield, MA) but I freely admit to having spent hours watching YouTube videos of live concerts and DVD clips. And I adore Clarence Clemons, the Biggest Man You Ever Seen. His stage presence, his antics with Bruce, and most of all his music are utterly delightful and engaging. I am so, so grateful that I got to see him live before he died.

I feel like I'm not articulating myself very well. Last night I read several wonderful essays and obituaries about the life and work of the Big Man, and they said everything so much better than I. In some ways I feel a little unworthy to speak of Clarence Clemons in these terms: I only "discovered" the music of the E Street Band in 2009, while people like my father, a born-and-bred Jersey boy himself, grew up with this music, have been listening to it and worshiping at its altar for some 40-odd years. But the fact that I, at 22, and my father, at 53, are both saddened by the news of the Big Man's death, speaks to the timelessness of the music he helped create. There are multiple generations of people grieving for Clarence Clemons.

Really, though, I think the best words were penned by the Boss himself, on the official statement that was released last night on brucespringsteen.net:

It is with overwhelming sadness that we inform our friends and fans that at 7:00 tonight, Saturday, June 18, our beloved friend and bandmate, Clarence Clemons passed away. The cause was complications from his stroke of last Sunday, June 12th. 

Bruce Springsteen said of Clarence: Clarence lived a wonderful life. He carried within him a love of people that made them love him. He created a wondrous and extended family. He loved the saxophone, loved our fans and gave everything he had every night he stepped on stage. His loss is immeasurable and we are honored and thankful to have known him and had the opportunity to stand beside him for nearly forty years. He was my great friend, my partner, and with Clarence at my side, my band and I were able to tell a story far deeper than those simply contained in our music. His life, his memory, and his love will live on in that story and in our band.

Rest in peace, you beloved Big Man. You will be sorely missed.

UMMMM okay in other blog-related news, Song #2 is coming along nicely (It's about CURRENT EVENTS.) I'm basically done with the lyrics and have the chords worked out. (I know that not ever week is going to be this easy, but it's nice to be starting out with this much productivity! The main thing I need to work on for the next few days is the transition from G to Bm and C to Bm. Is not easy. 

I really like the way this one sounds. The chords fit really well and I could hear it just as easily on an electric guitar as with my acoustic Blue Ridge. I might post a "preview" in a few days to get y'all excited. =P

I really need to change my guitar strings.

The new strings have been sitting on my desk for approximately two months, staring at me, waiting for me, weeping for me.

Their day will soon come.

ANYWAY.

Tonight I recorded and uploaded this song for you, my pretties. I wrote it a couple months ago, I guess? (I remember playing it for Ali and/or Margaret at some point in Aprilish.) I'm not really sure where it came from; it was one of those happy, magical moments where the song appeared in my head, essentially fully formed. All I had to do was write it down and work out the guitar chords. I wish that would happen more often.

It doesn't really have a title yet. I've been tossing around the name "Wasteland Lullaby," but I don't like that very much. I'd really, really like to call it "Apocalypse Lullaby," but I've come across no fewer than two songs in recent months with the same or similar name ("Apocalypse Lullaby" by the Wailin' Jennys and "Apocalyptic Lullaby" by Alina Simone--both are gorgeous songs, check them out!). Given this reality, I'm thinking I should come up with something original and different. But what? (Suggestions?)

Interestingly, my song and the song by Alina Simone bear many similarities, even though I'd never even heard of her when I wrote it. Collective unconscious, much?

Simone: Hush, now, baby, baby, don't you cry / 'Cause battle ships keep falling from the sky.
Cobb: Hush, little baby, don't say a word / The bandits move in angry hordes.

Here's mah vidja.

What this means is that the next song I upload will be on Thursday, June 23, a week from today! That song is already in progress, I just need to write the last few verses and master the chords. (B-minor is not my friend, however much I love the way it sounds.)

I also have a bunch of ideas for topics to write about here, from where I get inspiration, to what kind of music moves me, to my songwriting process, etc., so expect some of those posts coming up during the weeks between songs!

"You just gotta fight your way through": Why I am fighting.

This quote by Ira Glass is what inspired me to start this blog. I found it some weeks ago and realized that it perfectly explains everything I feel about myself and my creativity, why I continue to be dissatisfied and annoyed by my own creative output. (Thanks for the ego-boost, Ira Glass--apparently I have good taste!) Sometimes it seems hopeless and I feel utterly discouraged; I'll never be a good songwriter, I'll never improve on guitar. I still don't know how to play piano so obviously I'm an utter failure. My ukulele and I aren't on speaking terms. I write approximately one good song per year. Bruce Springsteen will never be my friend.

It was this part of the quote in particular that gave me a certain sense of purpose: "...the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you finish one piece."

So that's my goal. I'm done with writing one good song per year because I know I can do better. I am going to write/complete one song per week for the next three months (at least) and record them and post them on this blog. They won't all be good, and some of them may be downright bad, but but the process will help me improve and hopefully each one will be better than the last. Three months means twelve songs which is approximately an album's worth, and that feels like a good goal. If it works, I'll keep going!


The point is that setting a goal of recording one song per week will force me to hone and develop the creative skills that go into song-writing. The main thing that's held me back in the past is the sensation of "not good enough." I'd start writing a song and then stop, because I couldn't make it work, it didn't look good, I couldn't get the chords right. No more of this. I shall churn out songs whether or not they're perfect--I won't let my uncertainty and self-doubt impede me, because that's not going to help me improve AT ALL.

I've actually been putting this off for a while--I meant to start at the beginning of June. But at that point I was bogged down with moving, finding a job, and this morose state where I was extremely unhappy with my current life situation and feeling trapped in a life that will never amount to anything more than retail. But that can only happen if I allow it to, and my hope is that by following through with the goal of this blog, I can help carry myself higher and farther, emotionally or otherwise.

At some point in the next few days, I'll post a song I've written recently, just to start things off. From then on, that will be the day of the week that I'll plan on posting the song I've spent the previous week working on. I'll also probably make at least one or two posts during the week, to update on progress and share random musings on music, writing, inspiration, life, etc.

Good lord, what have I gotten myself into??