After having our spring plans canceled, my wife and I are beginning to think about a fall trip to Tokyo and just the thought of roaming the streets of Kichijoji was enough to inspire a short song. It started with a semi-interesting chord sequence recorded straight to my ipod touch for fear of forgetting it before I could find a use for it. Over a week or more the song evolved into an electrified version in 3/4 time after some work with an old copy of Vegas software. Here is the initial demo sketch from the ipod with a touch of reverb added
and here is the vegas production version
which ended up with a slight variation in the bridge chord sequence which was originally in C G F C G C G F E7, but ended up as Am C D F C G F E7. And for the record, the main section is Am E7 C D7 FM7 E7 Am E7.
It’s been a bit of a dry spell for me musically but something seasonal has surfaced as we move into prime thunderstorm weather in the hot days of late summer. And after the storms pass, if we are lucky, we may see a rainbow which is what this song is about, or is it?
This is the time each year when we usually head for Japan to visit family and friends. We bought tickets in February to leave March 11th, but then decided we weren’t quite ready and the weather in Japan was still unseasonably cold so we changed the departure date to March 25th. March 11th the great earthquake struck Japan, followed by a devastating tsunami that wiped out whole towns and crippled a nuclear power plant. When we heard it on the news we counted ourselves lucky not to have left on March 11th but wondered if our plan to leave on the 25th was still a good idea. We watched and waited and in the end, with advice from friends and family we decided to cancel and wait for better days. As we watched the story unfold I still had regrets that we hadn’t gone and wondered if the chance would come again. We began to think about other places we could go to get away from the remnants of a typical Wisconsin winter and with those conflicting thoughts swirling, I captured the following sketch of a simple song in rough form on my ipod touch.
1) I am danglin’ on the downhill side of 4 and 60 years, got a suitcase full of memories, and a pockeful of fears
2) and it seems like time to just unwind and hit the road again, feel like going’ somewhere, where I ain’t never been
3) so I spread the map out on my lap and draw a crooked line down river roads as the river flows I let my days unwind
4) ’cause I feel like goin’ somewhere I ain’t never been, but you never know, if you don’t go, will you get the chance again
Found an unexpected use for a new iPod Touch capturing short song sketches with the voice memo feature. This is pretty much the raw track of something new with only a bit of reverb added and a simple bass part.
If you live in Wisconsin, there are certain things you learn to accept and preparing for winter is one of them. When I was younger that used to mean taking the screens off my parents house and putting on the storm windows. Winterizing the car was also an important ritual involving checking the antifreeze, battery, and tires and then making sure you had an ice scraper and snow brush to clear the windows. With newer windows and other technology, some things are no longer a bother but when fall arrives, you still mentally run through your winter checklist, including having the furnace inspected, to make sure you’re ready.
And as I get older, I seem to need to prepare mentally for another season of short gray days and long cold nights, and I even get to thinking about whether it might be time to consider a move to a warmer climate. But that would be a huge cultural change and so far, the stoic Scandinavian blood in me seems to say: quit whining and just deal with it. In some ways, the shorter days mean more time spent at home in the evenings which can provide more opportunity for reading and reflection, which sometimes even leads to new song ideas.
In this case the simple thought of weathering the winter led to a few catch phrases about cold fronts and then the simple and well worn concept of using the seasonal change as a metaphor in general for preparing to face adversity in whatever form. It’s all wrapped around a simple 8 bar blues variation in C and also gave me a chance to work with a new Fender J Bass instead of the canned keyboard foundation I am usually limited to. So here is the latest, a simple song about facing another Wisconsin winter or whatever other trials you may have in your life.
It’s been awhile, but here is something new for a new year.
Looking back on 2010 and my transition to WordPress in September, I still have a ways to go in editing posts going back to 2006 from my old blog on Vox, but 2011 will hopefully allow more time for new material. This first effort is a simple 4 chord song in G reflecting on the uncertainties of life’s journey using a favorite and familiar train metaphor.
Looks like my plan to easily transfer all my material over from Vox before the shut down in September did not go so well. All of the text and most images did come over, but the audio files got left behind, so I am working my way back and reloading mp3′s whenever I have time. So far I have made it back through all of 2009, but there is a lot more missing from 2006-2008. Looks like something to keep me busy for the next few weeks (months?) while I try to find inspiration for some new material to finish out 2010.
