Katy, this is about my 10th vocal take in two days. I like the way this song is coming out,, but my voice instrument isn’t a good fit. It needs you! I messaged you more deets on fb messenger.
To es mas caliente que el sol
Wherever it is you may go
Five minutes after you leave all the air is cold
Shoulders shiver like a fault runs through
Lips turn from red to blue
And our words turn to smoke as they follow for you
Come back, come back to us
Come back, come and melt us
Come back, come back Mas Caliente Que El Sol
As the night was coming to an end
I wanted to be more than friends of friends
You left your hand on my hand as you said goodbye
So much has happened between now and then
The earth froze and a garden bloomed again
Yet still I fall asleep and see your light dark eyes
To es mas caliente que el sol
Wherever it is you may go
Five minutes after you leave all the air is cold
Shoulders shiver like a fault runs through
Lips turn from red to blue
And our words turn to smoke as they follow for you
Come back, come back to us
Come back, come and melt us
Come back, come back Mas Caliente Que El Sol
Tu es mas caliente que el sol
Wherever it is you may go
Five minutes after you leave all the air is cold.
I took these photos on Cherry Grove, Fire Island over the summer. …actually LATE summer…it was a warm mid September evening.
This song was distributed to streaming services this evening, so it will go live in a few days on Spotify, itunes, Google Music, etc. You can sign up for a notification when it gets released here >> https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/falala/setting-sun
I was up until 4:30 am tweaking the mix, then put the finishing touches on today. The project was challenging on so many levels. Financially, emotionally, musically. Wow.
Before I proceed, I want to give special thanks to Julie Delano. Do you HEAR that BASS? I recall one of her fb posts that she’s not the best bass player. WTF? Her bass is everything. She’s written for, sang, and played for so many bands including Gold, Dream Bitches, Kansas State Flower, The Leader.
You know what, I’m just going to come out and say it. Let the dominoes fall where they will. (I have heard it circle back to me in my younger days that people think I’m conceited.) I am so happy with the way this song came out. I wasn’t so sure before my late night binge, but now…I’m digging those balances, those “sounds”.
What were the hurdles with this one? For one, I ran out of money. Stupid, silly, aging, no name songwriter that I am. I really really really really thought so much of myself that I’d actually get chosen for a super competitive songwriter grant. So I thought I’d take (*) to the end with current producer. Then, of course, the grant rejection letter. Matt Roth was very very generous with his time and went above and beyond fair trade, but asking people to do things for free, when they have their own super talented projects to attend to, that’s not my jam. It was time to do this on my own. And wow, mixing. Wo,w, wow, wow. It’s a whole other animal. But yeah, I learned so much from working with him, I was finally able to wrap my brain (and knobs) around it. I could never have done it without his help on the other songs. And it is by no means the end of our creative endeavors. I hope (and sense) he agrees.
Aside from mixing, the huge issue was…. the scream…I recall Julie suggesting “I had to scream” when I kvetched that I was having vocal challenges in that section. I never was able to scream it out. 10 takes, and I still couldn’t do it. And now what? Well, the world is going to end. We’re all going to get covid19 and die. Suddenly I don’t give a damn about anything, or how it’s been done, or how it should be done, or changing course mid—no end—project. It’s like you have a plan, then suddenly you drop that plan, and you’re suddenly free, nothing to lose. That’s where my 4am stint comes in. I chopped up that song in a remix. Literally, the song looked like a ribbon on my software, like a birthday present ribbon. And I took e-scissors, and I made those e-scissors chop, chop, chop it into little pieces, and I copied and pasted those little guitar waling fragments into that big gaping hole of silence where the scream should have been. So now when you listen, right after the bridge..it gets weird and repititive and it sounds like there’s static or like an old scratched vinyl record. I really really was trying to get the timing to be perfection, like a hybrid EDM rock record, but I couldn’t pull it off. I think the uniqueness makes up for the transgression of perfect beats…but…time to move on. Why? Like I said, the world is ending, we’re all going to die. F*&Cl it. And it’s been a year since I wrote the songs for this album. NEXT…
Sadly, I had to cancel my flight to NM. I was finally getting warmed up with my set list. Bummer. Taking my acoustic to work, strumming & humming out a tune between phone calls. My fingers were getting fluid ’round that neck. Stronger, too. Not easy to bend a Yamaha steel string. I’m generally a pretty mellow person, especially when it comes to health scares. Now is different. If the empty toilet paper shelf in the supermarket didn’t get me, than the suspension of all flights to & from Europe did.
I guess with all events getting cancelled, I will be finishing (*) once and for all. I announced my intention to make an album about a year ago, and I’m not disappointed in the time it’s taken, considering not just my musical situation but my emotional state. This year I lost my uncle, my father, my cat and my dog. Musically, I don’t have a band, so I had to arrange & compose all the parts. Looking back over this past year, I realize I never previously used a DAW software to do this sort of work. Now in the final stages, I have to vocalize that I’m proud of myself. I never ever ever thought I would finish. And long after it’s done, being proud of myself will really be all I’ve got. If my life so far as a songwriter predicts, few people will ever hear it anyway.
Sadly, I may have to finish the post production myself. I’ve been overlooked for several grants. This exacerbated by an uncertain financial near-future due to the crashing economy. I’ll just have to eke it out. It’s against the advice of a prominent producer who was so gracious up my request to offer me advice. No, not the nobody who told me I can’t sing. “If you spend money on anything, spend it on mixing”. Best advice. I found the best producer to do this. Oh well. Nobody is going to hear this shit anyway. Really. Anyone who knows me knows I am a generally positive person. It’s not an outlook. It’s probability. Math. Nobody is going to hear my music. The GOOD news, if there is any, is on the wave that’s coming after this one crashes. I have a whole other album of songs trying to push its lil’ head through all this tedious work, and I just can’t suppress it anymore. And I may soon have my grandmother’s grand piano in my home. So maybe some piano songs? It’s looking like the next one come fast and be sparse and folky. Can’t wait….
Good thing I’ve always had a day job. Rejection piled on rejection. This one from the NYC grant for female artists. I was hoping to raise $ to finish (*) ouch. ;(
I dropped Dead Birds Fly this week, which entailed streaming the song and/or video on various public media outlets. Let the trolling begin. Some guy posted “Yoko Ono sounds better” on my facebook songwriter page.
I know he meant it as an insult, but being compared to Yoko, even unfavorably, is an honor to me. She has been pushing artistic boundaries for decades. Sometimes…no…often…I don’t understand her art on a logical level, but the beauty in the uniqueness affects me viscerally. Even when she emits sounds that border between barks and dolphin mating calls, the extremeness of it gives the the rest of us permission to do what it is we want to do. She sets the bar. Nothing is too strange. I love her.
Curious as to who this troll was, I stopped by his facebook page, which led me to his website. “Original Music” displayed in the header. Aha. A songwriter. I clicked “play” on one of the tracks. Impressive blues guitar. Definitely adept at using multiple fingers to pluck out the notes. Then his voice kicked in. Incredible. Smokey, bluesy, powerful yet soft, resonant yet rough. This guys voice, and I hate to say it, is as good as it gets.
So why does he feel a need to publicly shame my voice? I will never get it. But I do want to ruminate on the lack of empathy. Voice is genetic. I’m sorry, but no amount of training in the world will ever make me have one of those gifted Whitney Houston voices. I don’t care what all those people trying to sell voice lessons on youtube say. At a certain point it is what it is.
So with that logic, imagine if I was all “judgy” about other people’s DNA. I would make fun of other women for being flat chested. Or maybe make fun of people with big feet.
I listened to “troll” man’s other songs, and the header of the page struck me as wrong. “Original Music”. Clearly, he was proud of writing his own songs. It didn’t say, “Great Voice”. I probably wouldn’t have noticed, had he not commented on my page but…His songs weren’t all that original. He may have written them, but they were repetitive, formula driven, cliche and boring.
I would never ever troll anyone back, and maybe I should’ve just blocked him and called it a day, but I couldn’t help myself. I commented on his comment, the one he left on my page. “At least I can write”.
At some point the next day, I noticed he deleted his comment.
Don’t get me wrong, I love to sing. But I don’t sing because I want to be some famous rock star, lol, at least not at my age. Ultimately, I sing because I write. I don’t have a-list vocalists knocking down my door to take my songs and make them their own. Haha, I wish. I sing because I write. So leave me the F*& alone.
Ok, I’m not the world’s best dancer, but I do have to give credit to my friend & neighbor Jone Jones for allowing myself to move and be moved by music. After all, she TOOK credit. May she rest in peace.
This is about reaching an impasse in a relationship, and not necessarily a romantic one. I think sometimes my friends and loved ones think I’m writing about them. If you are reading this blog, definitely not. I’ve written about sadder subject matter, such as death, loss of love and sickness. But it is this piece that has a power over me that never seems to diminish with time nor repetition. I am relieved to start working on my next production. Sound production by Matt Roth of Olive Juice music. I cannot thank him enough for offering his talent, keen ear, and support. He is a brilliant songwriter, and I appreciate time away from his own projects to help me.
