1. a RandallThing.
2. two things for Joe which are Optional but I would like to do anyway.
3. Nur Ein!
3. clean the stupid dumbdumb closet, damnit.
4. review Round Zero, although at this point whatevermonkey.
5. read and edit more bookie-book.
6. frickkin sleep, dammit.
7. attend to some semblance of personal hygiene.
8. learn to spell.
9. take the Cylon to his “dancing lessons.” (this is sort of a metaphor, but not really)
10. PRACTICE!!!! 
Tag Archive: Joe Covenant
For me, the idea of “drama free” began in a poem which I wrote back in 2006. I discarded it because I grew out of the reasons for writing it.
Later on it came back up and combined with a new reason for writing it. It became a song then, about leaving and coming into my own. It was about something I went through religiously.
I may someday make a ‘story of a song’ over it. I feel like Graham gets it, because he covered it. I feel like Joe gets it, because he is talking about it and remembering it, and it sticks in his mind as something that belonged to me. I feel sometimes like other people get me. Oftentimes, I feel like people … don’t.
EX: raise your hand if you knew that I had never heard of Sue Storm until AFTER the Round One listening party?
This means I should write a Round One story of a song, and I probably will. There’s some golden eggs in there – some intended specifically for Travis Langworthy, but it’s a little silly joke that I was telling. It’s also a very STUPID joke and a pretentious joke that is very much MY sense of humor!!!
Anyway, some people get my little “off” sense of humor and what I’m trying to do. And it’s nice to have any audience among my peers. some people that know that I’m always trying to do something transformative which is about what the lyrics are attempting to reveal about me. And that I’m trying to do it in this particular way. And that when I listen to people too much and try to change what I’m doing into what they think I should be, that it will never work for me.
I can’t really sacrifice what I have to say for audience, for money … for anything. I’m just going to have to find another way.
As a songwriter, I am a diarist. I can only write what I know. I only know – me.
Part of me has learned from these competitions that I’m not really cut out for them. I’m not like Edric, who writes a song that he is told to write, and does it brilliantly. I go through painful transformative cataclysms until it is done. I am not the master of the song, it is the master of me. I invited who I THOUGHT the judges were into the bedroom this time, and then hit on them in a tawdry and clumsy way … then I got REJECTED. Like in an embarassing way. Like I staged this whole cheezy scene. Thinking I was all… beautiful or something and … well … shoulda known better.
It’s a horrible metaphor and doesn’t really fit. But I feel dirty and gross. Nothing worse that raping your own self. That’s just dumb. And I realize that for a piece of something awful, my tune is actually pretty skilled, compared to a lot of things. But this is why everyone is always feeling very sorry for Brittney Spears. She’s not a bad performer, but she keeps shaving her head and gaining and losing weight and flashing her yow-yow every which way.
So my tune was an abberation in a lot of ways. Albiet classier. It’s hard for me to embarass myself. It’s something slutty that I did. And I think that I hate it. I’m ashamed of it. I’m glad that it put me out. Just like I’m glad that my first song in Song Fu six, ‘Rain’ did enough damage to my total score to knock me out of a shot into the Final Round. Because in THAT case, I listened to what someone else told me to do. They told me that my instincts weren’t good enough – and that I had to start all over and please someone else.
I know that I’ll be told that I’m being too hard on myself. I don’t care. This is all just rehearsal for me. I’m doing this now so that I won’t have to do it more painfully later. I don’t think for a second this is it for me. I’ve been saying this since I was 16.
Anyway, with these thoughts, I’ll show you the poem I wrote so long ago. It’s called Lucky Charm
LUCKY CHARM
I said I love you and you said it back
You’re the only one
who’d complicate
so simple a clean fact
You’re my lucky charm
pulled from the lion’s mouth
with tiny little hands
You made me look so obvious
infants could understand
You were the one who babysat
me through the evening
So now you’ll stay
alone with you
Because I have to
Leave in company with me
the only way you’ll be okay is
Drama free and naturally
you’ll rue the day
And I don’t know
what on earth we’d do
In this flimsy house of cards
without you!
******
I did like the phrase enough to use ‘drama free’ for a hook later in a song.
I don’t know that you can copyright a phrase for a hook. I’m not popular enough to really be remembered enough for doing something cool or clever. But I was at least memorable enough to get covered, and brought up in the memory of a judge when a really cool phrase which I also discovered long ago once got brought up once again.
I wonder if anyone else has also discovered it.
I have made it into Nur Ein. It’s put on by the people over at Song Fight. I’m listening to it right now. The first few songs are already better than mine right now. This doesn’t bode well! The songs are all here
I’ve heard nothing but good production so far. It’s pretty good. I’m really not up to par for this one. I’m glad it’s the first (zero) round because my song is NOT good enough. I’m going to have to bring it next round. I believe that since there are not enough people, I’m going to get through and we all do the One Round.
Admittedly, I think my lyrics were good (or at least indicative of my style), but my delivery and playing and engineering lacked this round. It was basically a glorified improv. Good ideas, but not really real tight. But this contest … I’m COMPLETELY STOKED.
It’s funny, because Spintown (who is awesome) has issue with my lyrics but usually likes things I don’t like so much! I’ll have to keep that in mind when I get to my Travis-oriented things that are on my list of things to do.
I have a rap name too for myself. I picked it out! I’m DJ Ranger Den. The Den thing is sort of my nod to Joe. It’s his name for me. He had a crazy week. So Joe, you can have props in my nickname. There you go!
[ADDENDUM!]
Here are the lyrics to the tune
‘TIME TO PANIC‘
Could there be possibilities
seeded from dualities
sick needs
from lines I read between
You’re not convinced, I see
lick fingers one two three four five
quick tricky fight to stay alive
spin destiny real tightly
CH
Wrath and sloth and pride and greed
and lust and envy, gluttony
Up down, in out / and sideways, manic
tie me up and there’s no time
to panic
baptisms in infamy
won’t make this broken mirror lucky
so lead me up the stairway
to your eight nine then eleven twelve thirteen
i fall dangerously and need
your deadly sins all over me
be the one who’s down below
the angel of the 66th row
add three, I don’t care
make it make-believe I’m still there
practice underwater breathing
wear your heart upon my sleeve
CH/BR
crunch time, time to cut the wire
chaos suicide it’s blastoff time
10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1
ground zero blast off time
no panic time the games not mine
five four three two one and now
ground zero / you’re down below
CH
This is a blog about my SongFu shadow entry. It’s going to be very stream of consciousness, as I go …
THE STORY
One of the things about this story is that it’s DIFFERENT from the original Bluebeard song! This is because it is a different wife. The first wife I envisioned for my king I had to make up. This is because Joe made me very, very nervous.
Joe isn’t just older than me agewise, he’s fuller and richer sounding than me. He has a more sophisticated sounding accent to me (to my ears). When he records himself, he often does this “man on the march with a very large army” thing with chorus-type effect and it makes him seem very present. Whereas I sound often very young and thin. I often wrinkle around the pitch and I haven’t quite come into the bottom-out of my range. I can feel it coming, but it hasn’t arrived yet. I think we work in a duet sitch because our vibratos just happen to match up. It’s odd because our voices do not. The only way I resolved this problem was to make a character piece till I learn the puzzle around our vocal chemistry better.
The basic thing is that he’s a remote cold ruler of a country and my first wife is a young and easily impressionable childlike slip of a girl that is completely overcome by this man. He teaches her EVERYTHING about love and she is lost in him. But yeah, curiosity kills the cat. She finds the key and all the women are hanging on the hooks.
It makes me want to finish it, in a trilogy. How did he become a serial killer? Hmmm. I swear I’m not a psychopath! Maybe I want an album of feminist fairy tale songs.
The story didn’t feel over. I wanted this king dead. And the real story is about the wife that is saved. I don’t like that. I want the girl to save herself. So I change the story. I want her to poison him. I think poison is very romantic. Maybe she has a cool ring that she keeps poison in. Maybe it’s the ring that the previous wife (who was her friend, after all!) didn’t have the good sense not to use at the first awkward breakfast after that stupid business trip to the orient where he went to get the textiles or whatever it is he does overseas …)
There’s an argument happening in a development happening between this husband and wife leading up to the line “what will you kill me for / I’ll kill you for – curiosity” The characters are not in sync. The facade of the marriage is starting to fall apart. It’s all based on sex and mourning for a mutual love. The wife was too fascinated with the intense love story of the original Bluebeard marriage (“I watched you love her” – from the first stanza), and Bluebeard was kinda (sorry!) sexing his troubles away with her. This new wife is very sensual … but not “the one.”
This is because Bluebeard has a problem with women. But he screwed up because he fell in love with the one from FuSixRound 2 and now he’s acting out. He really should stop killing his women. Perhaps he needs a ‘shrink.
In the blues part, it’s pretty certain that they do have a bit of a thing for each other. They certainly are addicted to propriety, an ideal of marriage, sex, the mourning of an idealized love that they both witnessed (and he experienced!) in the previous marriage (the ‘Something Very Horrible’ one). They need the One More Night. But this girl has her head on a bit straighter and she’s got follow through. She rises to the challenge and remembers that he can drink himself a bit and that she’s just got to suck it up past her fascination with this man. What’s her lie? Maybe that it’s okay. Who knows.
They both know it’s not okay. The whole situation is easy. It’s like a duel.
I have a little scene in my mind about the “ties that bind.” Like he imprisons her and then lets her out for one more night. This tracks with the Bluebeard story where she begs for ten more minutes. Mine becomes one more night. This is admittedly why I drag out section two a bit. I’m trying to stretch it out like you try not to say goodbye.
But onto the next section. The compositional ideas are, once again for me, not coming across in the recording … yet!
The Recording
1. I haven’t had a guy vocal in my songs since … before …. I’m experimenting with a themed thing. I have access to a lot of tools I’ve never had before as well.
3. This song is not finished. I’m not happy with it yet.
4. I think the engineering is very “tentative.” I think that this is because I am at a very tentative point in my life. I’m both confident and unsure.
5. I am also taking more risks and trying to bring together all the “things that I wanted to be when I grew up” into one cohesive style. It’s hard to amalgamate everything.
6. Joe has this opinion about the first Bluebeard tune. He said other people have shared this opinion, and I have since had that confirmed. It’s that my vocals are buried back in the mix and should be louder. This got into my head on this recording. I think I over-compensated. As a result, my vocals are too loud.
7. Joe’s vocal is not loud enough. His reverb is not right yet. I need it to come up and I need to spend time finding the right reverb for him. This is still in discussion. I fear I will never find the right effect for him; although I have gotten pretty good at editing his position and his wave when need be. I did it REALLY well in Bluebeard. Although … he hardly needed a thing because the man can lay down a track …
8. I want another instrument in here. Or three. I ran out of time, simply that. Also, I really wanted a real drumset. SXSW intervened. Maybe I’ll get my wish sometime.
9. The vocals are also out of sync a bit, in my opinion.
10. It was hard to line up the track to the instrumentals. Usually it is not hard to do this. Cubase has been acting up. The computer fully crashed twice during this and I actually lost a lot of data once!
I think I was having “marital problems” with the song! Just like they were.
Sometimes things don’t come quite as easily. However, I like the concept a lot and I think this has a lot of potential. It feels right. More mature. It’s worth a work-on. So I’m gonna keep at it. Which feels weird to say, because I can’t play it live or anything.
Anyway, the listening party is soon and Joe is casting so I’m off. I have to admit that I’m a bit nervous about this one, so will post this blog now.
Thanks for listening.
Well, Masters of Songfu Round 2 is up. I have written a song called ‘Something Very Horrible (Bluebeard’s Lament).’ We were told to write a song that doesn’t rhyme. It was very difficult. I chose to write a song about Bluebeard. It’s based upon his fable. You can find out more about Bluebeard, and his poor wives – here, where I liked all the story except the very last line!
It features a fellow called Joe “Covenant” Lamb. He is also a member of Too Much Awesome with me, and won the last Song Fu, so I’m fortunate to have him on my track.
And SECOND most importantly, you can vote for the song HERE!
(and apologies for BLOGGING this SO LATE to anyone I’ve passed a card to :S)
