New Tune, “High Finance”

“High Finance,” from “Garageband Demos 2009-2010.”

Sometimes I feel the need to fall down from high finance
I call sick and start driving until I hit Baton Rouge
Where the hotels are cheap and the liquor is cheaper
I’ve never been a sound sleeper so I might as well cut loose

I got a pint of rye through my arteries pulsing
Soon my stomach’s convulsing in the bushes outside
I hit it again and that seller keeps selling
There’s no telling how many that stream down my throat

I’m gonna burn through every one of my father’s connections
And I’ll burn through my subordinates on call
As no prep school could hold me
There’s no point should one scold me
I’ll have it my way or no way at all

The parking lot’s all but empty and the insects are singing
With the moonlight ringing as it lights up the clouds
But I’m too drunk to deal.  I put my head on the wheel.
I’m surrounded by steel and the radio‘s too loud

Someday I’ll get transferred back to New York City
And when that call comes I don’t know what I will do
I might accept it politely or I might lose it completely
And cash out my trust fund until my trust fund runs through

I’m gonna burn through every one of my father’s connections
And I’ll burn through my subordinates on call
As no prep school could hold me
There’s no point should one scold me
I’ll have it my way or no way at all

I put on my rubber gloves and I light me a cigarette
I flick the butt on the bedsheets and I whisper my name
I burn down the highway.  There’s the radio reporting:
Half a city block in Baton Rouge gone this morning in flames.

This is one of four tunes I wrote in Autichamp, France, in draft form, in Summer 2008.  I then let them all sit on the shelf for a year as I worked on Adieu, False, Heart in 2009.  Following that, I began revisions as the spirit moved me, which as it turned out was nearly two years later.

This is probably the least sympathetic protagonist I’ve had in a tune for some time, which all the more necessitates the need for a sweet melody in a tune, which this one has.  One of the advantages of song is that a writer works with two media rather than one, which for example a prose writer works with.  Instrumental music operates, because it is non-verbal, at a deep level with people.  I play instrumental music in my classroom when I am not directly teaching (exclusively good jazz from Ellington and Basie at the earliest through Dexter Gordon‘s Blue Note recordings from the 1960′s–basically, if Rudy Van Gelder engineered it, I want to play it) and despite the number of students who scream that they want a song with words, the music does the trick.

The fundamental experience a listerner has to a song comes from the instrumental music.  Indeed, as many people have observed, at some basic level what the lyrics themselves are saying doesn’t matter: people respond the the sound of the words rather than their literal meaning.  This leads to an obvious problem: because people can have a wonderful musical experience listening to a song with words that are of little literary value but which are unobtrusive, writers don’t invest much attention in writing their words well.

I would qualify the observation above that other people have made (I can’t remember where most recently I read someone who made the point) that the actual meaning of words doesn’t matter in song, but rather the musicality of the words.  What I would say is that the meaning doesn’t immediately matter.  This is the trick.  In an industry that wants to sell a lot of stuff and quickly, the goal of the product is immediate impact.  Immediately, the words don’t matter, as long as you have them so people don’t confuse your product for something like, God forbid, instrumental jazz.  What happens, though, is that at some point, if you have words, people are going to start to think about them.  At that point, if they mean something, it gives another layer of meaning to the song, people stick with the song, and the song in its turn sticks with people.  Writing good lyrics is an investment in a song’s future rather than its immediate present.

As usual, I don’t make any particular claims about this particular tune at this point.  It’s still fresh.  That said, I’m pretty pleased about it.  Any tune that deals with the fundamental anti-social criminality of financial capitalism is OK in my book, even for just trying.

A note on my musical progress as I close: I’m off today (in three hours’ time) to Riverside for over a month.  I’m bringing my guitar, mandola, and laptop on which I record demos.  I expect to have few distractions and am cautiously optimistic I’ll be able to devote some serious time to writing.  I haven’t made any decisions about a next record, but depending on circumstances it will be either recorded in a semi-live setting with other musicians (that is to say, we’ll record basic live tracks to ProTools and then overdub) or I’ll do the one-man-band thing.  The tunes I have so far seem pretty good so I’m optimistic.

Demos for Bill & Pete/House Carpenters added to Archive.

Quickly: I just posted a group of six 4-track demos to my Archive.  The tracks are as follows:

1. For Good Measure
2. I Know & You Know
3. Have You Seen My Baby
4. As the Night Goes By
5. 12 O’Clock Sharp
6. Across the Windy Distance

All of these are well-done, and the only one that isn’t a fully fleshed-out arrangement with drums is “As the Night Goes By,” though that one nonetheless is a nicely done recording, with some vocal tricks in the arrangement that are a lot different that what the House Carpenters ended up releasing on In the Choir of Primates.

Enjoy them.  I have begun a blog post about “I Know & You Know,” but as I’ve started working again it may take a little time to finish the commentary.  I am at a point where I’m getting ready to start writing and recording again.  I plan on returning, after cutting Adieu, False Heart live in studio (to great effect, I’d say), to my tried-and-true method of overdubbing the various instruments on the recording.  I expect other people will be part of it, too, as their schedules allow.

Good news is that after years teaching high school and barely surviving the round of layoffs that hit my school district like so many across California, I’ve started teaching seventh grade.  I am well aware that things always deteriorate after the first week, but for the first time in years I have a group of students who ask questions without being prompted, who want to do a good job, and who aren’t too jaded to allow themselves to have fun in class.  Of course I had students like that at the high school, but generally I had to push everything forward.  I would never have sought this change, but I’m genuinely grateful it happened, and I’m having a ball.

Adieu, False Heart available

“Cheap Liquor,” from Adieu, False Heart (2009)

Quickly:

My newest album, Adieu, False Heart, is now available at General Ludd Music. Download is free.  One song, “Cheap Liquor,” is publicly available without registration.  It is included in this post, though I will write about it later as well at greater length.

Years ago I blogged a bit about my music, posting music files with commentary, and in hindsight it was good for me personally as well as for a number of other people who in year since have told me they enjoyed what I wrote.  I’ll re-start that process here.

I’ve made music for well over 20 years and good music (as far as I’m concerned) since at least my Junior year in college, and I haven’t done anything better than this, though I’ve done plenty of things that are wonderful and different.  It’s just me and a guitar, cut in a studio, with an emphasis on concision and clarity.  It sounds exactly like I sound when I sit with a guitar and play well.  I haven’t made a record like this before, in that sense.  As far as the tunes are concerned, they are certainly the most directly accessible tunes I’ve written in years–like since 1993 or 1994–but they reflect all the development in my work up through Begging Bowl a couple of years ago.

Enjoy the tunes, and be in touch.