6/24/08

Ummm, Almost Over

I guess this is close to my day of reckoning with this project. I have one more song left to post. Sure there are tons of unheard bonus tracks, live recordings, and other miscellany - but there is one more "released" song left to go. The Underpainting will make it here as soon as the next record is released (recorded too).

This leaves me with the question of: then what? Is the unreleased stuff of interest? Should I quit while I am ahead (behind)?

Any thoughts?

6/14/08

ROADS

BMR, GOOD SOLDIER

What am I against?

Well, what have you got?

The template for my human condition. Rally against, ponder, break free, forget. I am deliberate in my absorption of that condition - trying to feel each pinch and twinge it offers. These terms are to be abided! This is a fault that came up in college though. My friend and professor Ethan warned me about making all of my "art" a reaction against something (or somebody) outside of me. He was right. That is a narrow way to experience the world. Years later, another very wise man had another word for me. This was about that deliberate condition: you have to experience the gritty lows to experience the soaring heights. So I try not to react and I try to accept and take it all as it comes. Here come dusty roads...

When I took a chance,
I ended up on top.
Went from a saunter,
to a trot

6/7/08

NEW NORTH

First put the core of this down after seeing a show of some particularly free folkie stuff. i don't recall who it was, but I do recall thinking I wanted to write something less straight forward folkie and more abstract after I saw that show. But this idea and this expression was a long time coming:

You can blur your worries
into climbing vines
it's only in your mind

Yeah, that's where this gets heavy.

Production note:
Jim Reynolds slide guitar was so real and gritty - perfect. We had recorded this song before. We'd played it live. We'd played it slow. We'd played it fast but never before did we get it down like this. The doubled vocals are a warm oven. So to me this is the definitive version of the song.

6/2/08

DIVORCED

I was pondering the idea of divorce. Not the standard association with the word that we (unfortunately) have, but a different meaning - to remove yourself from, maybe even by force. Two alternate titles come back to me: Divorced Thought and Logic Divorced.

Was the break-up with my thoughts mutual? Or was there a disagreement that swelled and bred resentment forcing my thoughts to pack their bags. A third scenario, though unlikely, was that I became disillusioned with the relationship with my thoughts and kicked them to the curb.

I'm sorry I thought it, I divorced the logic
a portrait of ideas that fail
Wheel that did not touch the rail