This evening I put up a playlist on soundcloud, titled ‘In the Making’. In essence, it’s a set of songs that I recorded over the course of this year. I guess some would call that an album, but I hesitate to call it that (more for your sake, dear reader, than mine).
It was a bit of a decision to upload this album to soundcloud. So often when one ‘puts something out there’, we assume that there is a sense of readiness to the thing that we are putting out there, a polished quality to it. To upload or publish has become synonymous with the quality of wholeness; the published thing is publish(able); it has grown arms and legs and is ready to take on the world. My songs have none of these things. They were recorded on my iphone, and is of very little production value; some days my voice is better than others, but on all my guitar overpowers it (an act of overcompensation, invariably); mistakes pepper all of the tracks, despite my best efforts to keep them out of the recordings. What I am telling you is, where there should be limbs there are only stubs. Yet these stubs have stood out in my mind for a long time, and I’ve never known what to do with them, what I can do with them except for publish, because there is something in these stubby songs that feel whole, at least to me. Each of them meant enough to me to take time out of my busy life to record, usually two or three times; mull over for weeks to get the arrangement somewhere I felt happy with; all represent moments wherein I felt it was important for me to use my voice. With this album, to publish was to express, even in an imperfect, self-conscious way. The following track-by-track is some commentary on the songs I picked to cover, and the process of making it.
1. Crazy – Gnarls Barkley
This was the first song I recorded this year, I think, that I was somewhat happy with. In it I sing rather softly; a voice still sort of locked up in my chest. But the choice of song and the interpretation was deliberate. It might have been around this time that I was realising the importance of not trying to sing everything or play everything just as it has been performed. It does nothing for the ego, especially if you don’t have the range (I don’t, for lots of things), and it devalues the importance of doing the work in finding your own style and range, the character of your expression. This song ended up kind of dark; a heavy kind of song that didn’t have the bounce of the original, but one that maintained the driving melody in the strum pattern, and that bluesy howl of the chorus was fun to sing.
2. Come Down – Anderson .Paak
This was a really fun song to work on and sing. I adore the original by Anderson .Paak, with its spitting bassline and touch and go rhythms, and just felt that I had to cover it somehow. Of course, rap doesn’t lend itself easily to acoustic guitar, so I had some figuring out to do and the song ended up substantially different from the original. I loved the bassline so much I structured the chord progression around it as much as I could, and it found its own rhythm from there. The lyrics were tricky also, as .Paak sing-talks his way through most of his songs. His voice has a natural lyricism which I admire but couldn’t mimic, so didn’t attempt it, opting to create a new melody line for the first verse and rapping the second over acoustic guitar – I thought that created some nice textures for the song as a whole. Also took ‘Come Down’ quite literally at the end of the song by bringing it right down, bit of a smartass move but musically it worked really well.
3. One Night Town – Ingrid Michaelson and Mat Kearney
This was probably the quickest cover I did, and the closest to its original – I recorded it in one go (though I had played it previously without a view to recording). I just picked a song I liked which I felt suited my voice and style, and just went for it. The lack of overthinking with this song is rather exceptional! Played it a bit fast for my liking though, but there I go thinking again.
4. Fly Me to the Moon – Frank Sinatra
This song was originally borne out of a cover of Aretha Franklin’s ‘Say a Little Prayer for Me’ done by Lianne La Havas. I liked her version (or at least parts of it) and looked up the chords. After playing around with them for a bit I realised that I could rearrange them into Fly Me to the Moon, a song which I love to sing, but the chords for which (chords with enough nuance anyway) I had never gotten around to pinning down. Finally I sat down and worked it out. I tried to give this song a bit of a bossa nova feel that almost creeps into being elevator music but not quite, but gave the song a breakdown halfway through that attempted a more big band feel that carried it through to the end. Would Frankie be proud? Who cares! I liked it.
5. Sunday Morning – Maroon 5
I like to think of this cover as ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ in another life. The inspiration for it was drawn from the breakdown I just spoke of (or did this song inspire the breakdown? A bit of both.) The chords are exactly the same, just rearranged, echoing Adam Levine’s sentiments as he sings ‘you twist to fit the mold that I am in’. This song was also more technical than the others in this album – I experimented quite a bit in this song with textural changes, alternating between two different Am7s in various parts of the song and also switching out a D chord for a B7 variation for an abrupt (but hopefully welcome) tone change, which made the song a lot grungier in parts. This song is one of my favourites to play, and I’ve continued to play it and revise it since making this recording – it just has a breezy vibe that I like to settle into (yes, especially on Sundays).
6. I Won’t Give Up – Jason Mraz
Jason Mraz is one of my favourite artists, and I play his music quite a bit. There are a number of easy ways to play this song but like with ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ I wanted to try to do this song a bit more justice by playing it in its original D tuning. That meant that some compromises had to be made in terms of voice (the song has quite a big range) but it was rather worth it to get a bit more technical with the guitar. The biggest challenge with this song was trying to use the bassy 6th string consistently, to give the song its depth. This meant relearning many of the chords in D tuning, which is now useful for me if I ever want to do another song in D tuning again. I also hit upon a few chord variations which gave some parts of the song more texture (e.g. at the opening of the chorus) beyond the original, which I felt was an accomplishment in itself.
7. Can’t Help Falling in Love with You – Elvis Presley
I have been playing this song for years in many different ways, but had never really settled on an interpretation until now. I was re-inspired by my neighbour’s own rendition of the song, and like ‘One Night Town’ this song came together very quickly but with a lot more precision. I started it out with this chord pattern that I stole from Sara Bareilles’ ‘I Choose You’ (a song with a very humble strum) and the song snowballed from there. This song is one of my favourites in the album, for the way it manages to flower into a sort of quiet intimacy. It keeps things simple and is more about the voice than anything else, and is absolutely from the heart.
8. Dog Years – Maggie Rogers
I end this album (and this year) on a song by Maggie Rogers which resonated with me on many levels. She is this kind of bare bones singer and lyricist, and the song seems intimately concerned with the honest heart of things. This is the only song on the album I picked to cover because of the singer’s voice – again, moving away from an enthusiasm about the technical aspects of a song, but gravitating toward the intimacy and simplicity of a voice. This song was less about trying to be original in musicality – it didn’t overly deviate from the original – and more about using and cultivating that earnest voice, one that I might call mine.
In writing this I see in some ways an unfolding of the year, in all its hardness and softness. I can hear in the songs the hackles the year has raised, but also the moments of waiting, the relative stillness that have allowed these songs the space to exist. Here’s to hoping the new year brings more of these songs, more of these moments.
tiny fears 