I have a wonderful recording setup these days. The time it takes to grab my microphone, open up Logic, and press record can happen in less than one minute.

Yesterday I was looking at something I’d written and decided to work it into a melody. I grabbed my guitar, played around for a few minutes, then recorded it real quick so I wouldn’t forget.

I didn’t intend to add other instruments and make a song out of it.

Gin and Lies v.1

Put me in a cage
tell me I’m dead
I never want to see the sky again

I held onto the airplane
I thrashed against the side
My body was breaking

I drank gin and body of lies
and everybody died
I held a gun for the very first time

Fired 6 shots into the side of a barn
Felt blood flow and the feeling was warm
My body was breaking

If you’re wondering how a picture of me and Ryan Knight with our shirts off relates to this song, it doesn’t relate at all.

I just get the impression that blog posts without pictures are boring, so I like to scan my wife’s flickr account and link something.

This picture is of us in Krabi, Thailand, stinking it up in a hot, humid mosquito net watching Tropic Thunder on a netbook. That might sound cool, but that specific night ranks as one of the top five worst nights if my life. Illness + cramped, muggy quarters + clogged, filthy toilet + sleeplessness = Terrible.

Maybe the picture does relate to this song.

Here’s a song that my wife Kim wrote a few years back. I don’t know what melody she had in mind, I found her lyrics and chord changes and recorded it before asking her. Actually, I’ll post exactly what I found:

C          C
I dedicate all my nights
Am                 G
To call your name, to know your face
C                 C
So where are you? Where'd you go?
Am            G
In my arms or in my
C            C
Rotting soul

C                  C
I'll carry you and that August day
Am                     G
In the back of my mind and to my
C               C
Swollen grave
Am                     G
Where all the children sing so
C               C
Loud and brave

C                C
Who's gonna care when we all die?
Am                         G
When you've got the bullet in your brain?
C                C
Who's gonna stop and wonder why
Am               G
No one is saying "I'm so happy
C                C
To be alive"

C              C
And after they all say goodbye
Am               G
Who's gonna open the champagne and say
C                C
"Cheers to life! Cheers to love!
Am                         G
Here's to all those things I've been
C                  C
dreaming of."
Am                          G
Yes, here's to those things I'm
C                   C
Dreaming of.
Am         G
This is my ode to
C                    C
Life and love.
Am            G

You can hear what my version sounds like, or you can record your own and send it to me. I show you mine, you show me yours.

Loud and Brave

Kim wrote another song, actually recorded herself singing it, then made a video for it. You can find it here on her blog.

Also, I didn’t get any response for the last song I posted. I know the lyric says, “find love in the graveyard,” but I swear it’s not about anything morbid or disgusting.

This is the first song of a new download category called, “Song Sketch / Works in Progress.” These will usually be simple recordings of songs I’ve just written or songs I’ve written in the last year and feel stuck with the progress. In the case of this song: I like what I have, but it doesn’t seem like a lot. Maybe you’ll agree, maybe you’ll think it’s fine.

Eastern Side v.1 (2009)

Here are the lyrics as they are in the recording.

calm down on the eastern side
feel up and down your spine
find love in the graveyard
feel that moonlight coil

calm down on the eastern side
calm down on the eastern side

she’s gone away like dawn
she’s gone away like dawn
she was bright
but she died

fall light on the eastern side
fall light on the eastern side
fall light on the eastern side
fall light, fall light

P.S. – Happy Birthday, Mom.