Shrine

Last weekend, Lara awoke with a melody in her head that would not leave her alone. It was very catchy… dangerously so. Too dangerous to reveal here. The words were, “I’m not crazy / something something something / I’m just obsessed with you.” Anyway, we were sitting around toying with that melody, stretching it out, throwing it against the wall, and it eventually evolved into this week’s post, “Shrine,” a tale of obsessive love.

Lara ended up contributing several of the key lyrics, including the opening couplet — “Mama shuts me up and she locks the door / Daddy takes the knives from the kitchen drawer” — and the chorus’s thesis statement: “I’m out of my mind cause I want you.” (My original was the much more tortured epistemological tract, “I don’t know my mind but I want you.”)

I’m continuing to have fun with the good pop-rock sounds. I actually got a lot of inspiration from watching the new U2 concert film, “U2-3D,” over the weekend. This film has been flooded out of the popular consciousness by its more dominant colleague, “Hannah Montana in 3-D.” I think that there were a total of six people in the theatre. But despite the fact that Bono spent much of the film preening and prouncing around like he was an extra in Riverdance, I came away with a greater admiration for that band, mainly because of their extreme economy in writing hooks (both vocal and musical). The vocal lines that are known and loved the world over, like the “ooh ooh ooh ooh”s in “In the Name of Love,” or the “ho oh oh oh”s in “With or Without You,” are extremely simple. Three or four notes, tops.

Long story short, I came home and stripped down this arrangement considerably. I took my favorite two lines of the chorus and repeated them (rather than having four distinct lines), and I made the chord changes on the bridge the same as those of the verse section. Simplify, simplify. I’m basically trying to pare down these new arrangements until all that’s left is that which benefits the song itself, as opposed to that which exists only to cocoon my delicate ego. I don’t think this one turned out a home run… more like a long single. But sometimes ya gotta play small ball.

By the way, we are playing the Empty Bottle on Friday, and there will be lots and lots of new blog songs featured, including “Media Memory” and “Empty Frames.” All thanks to your magnificent feedback!

Empty Frames

Well, even though this is song #37 (I think) in this project, it’s week two as far as I’m concerned… my second week of trying to keep my songwriting straight down the middle. So far, it’s been a blast, even if it’s surprisingly hard work. Not that surprising, I guess — maybe it’s always easier to be an oddball.

This week’s track, “Empty Frames,” might be even more radio-oriented than “Media Memory” was. It’s a good old power-pop tune about lost love. The Cars, Guided by Voices, Cheap Trick, Weezer…. all your not-so-funky friends are here to share in this dance party. The rhythm section is fully quantized, in order to ensure maximum dancing enjoyment. Let’s party, fellow computers.

I really do feel like I’m learning how to write songs again for the first time. My first instinct, after setting out to write with more attention to “the rules” of songwriting, is to strip away all personality from the writing process. I think it’s only after one writes in that mode for a while that the personality — the style — starts to come back. Then again, maybe this song has some style to it… I’m too close to it to tell.

The song’s title comes from Lara’s artistic (and thrifty) instinct with the decor of our apartment — she hung empty frames all over the place. It occurred to me a couple weeks ago that “Empty Frames” would make a good title for a country song. This isn’t a country song. But, when I rediscovered an old tape that I kept next to my bed for the purpose of catching melodies that were in my head when I was drifting off to sleep, that title was still on my mind. And the melody that became the chorus was on that tape. So I slammed the melody and the title together in the old chemistry lab. That melody is probably about a year old… who knows, I was half-conscious. Much as I am now.

Thanks again everyone for all the great feedback on “Media Memory.” Hope you like this one too… the U.S.S. Mainstream sails again.

Media Memory

Well, there were a lot of ideas running through the conception and recording of this week’s selection, “Media Memory.” I am a tired man, but I will try to do them justice.

Those of you who know me personally know that, in my heart, I am hardly an indie dude. I’ve always loved big, mainstream, pop music. Sure, it can be formulaic, but that particular approach to songwriting evolved into a formula because it works so well — because it’s a brutally efficient method for injecting a melody into the human brain. (Apologies for the fascist imagery.) My favorite practitioner of this kind of all-American hitmaking is Tom Petty. His songwriting is unadorned and effective, and the Heartbreakers (his band) exemplify L.A. session-man restraint at its finest. Allow me to overstay my welcome by adding that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed all the songs I’ve heard from Sheryl Crow’s latest album, Detours. And I’ve already used this space to profess my attraction to the work of Aimee Mann. So you all know the drill: I’m a big dork.

It was only a matter of time before my love and respect for big mainstream pop found its way into my songwriting. In this week’s song, the arc from the verse to the chorus, and the placement of the choruses within the overall arrangement, is all exactly how Petty would do it. (Not that I’m claiming that my songwriting is as brilliant as his by half.) I also borrowed from two different Bowie songs — “Lady Stardust” and “Ziggy Stardust” — as well as countless other pop songs that are lodged in our Jungian collective unconsciousness.

On a related note, it’s been a long-term goal of mine to write more direct lyrics — another thing that Petty, along with lots of country-music writers, makes look easy. So this is my attempt to write a straightforward “story song”: a promising Hollywood actress is outed as a lesbian, and even in our enlightened modern age, it ruins her career (see: Lucy Liu, Anne Heche). Topically, I’m ripping Petty off yet again, via a little song of his called “Into the Great Wide Open.”

I always appreciate your feedback, but I’m especially curious to hear what you (yes, you) think of this one, since I consider it a pretty drastic departure from other stuff I’ve posted here.

Slave to Efficiency

Gentle reader, this post shall not tarry in any way, for I am fatigued. Here is a new song called “Slave to Efficiency“. It’s another “work song”, in the style of “Hustle Beach”, dealing with the chutes and ladders of the obsession with labor. I opted for an industrial-lite sound that I hope takes you back with fond memories to the heyday of Nine Inch Nails.

This song is warmly dedicated to Tom Brady and the New England Patriots.