Blue Aisles

I’m sure you’re dying to know why I dug out my ancient cassette recorder. Well, the story goes something like this:

I was scheduled to record Mas Caliente Que El Sol at SpudBrooklyn studios but had to cancel on account of illness. Nothing grave, just a flu or something that lingered and destroyed my voice for a few days. Since I couldn’t rehearse, I tried to focus on writing. As I have been posting, I’ve been writing at a rapid clip, however, it’s almost embarrassing how slowly it’s taking me to finish and produce them so you can hear. I’m almost starting to feel like a liar.

That brings me to my focus issues. I’m so scattered with various things to do that I find it hard to seal the deal. I’m always cooking or doing laundry or walking the dog…while I should be sitting in front of my song book with my acoustic and a pen.

I went to a Yoga class to “sweat out” the lingering flu, and the teacher…who seems to me more like a Yoga Jesus ….even though she has a very Jewish name..said something about “set the intention of this class. What is it you want out of this class?” So I immediately thought “to write as many songs in as little time as possible”. It felt off. It felt wrong. I imagined my fellow Yogis were thinking something along the lines of losing 5 pounds or having a good night sleep. I tried to cancel my intention and set another one, but that felt even MORE wrong, so I just went with it.

After Yoga, I ate dinner, sat down with my song book, and all the verses of Setting Sun fell into place along with the arrangement. The arrangement itself can sometimes be an arduous task. Only the bridge remains. Satisfied, I looked through the song book at some of my most recent inspirations. Pixels & Texts seemed to pour out almost finished. How does that happen? How can you fulfill your “yoga intention” when you don’t even know what that means? How can you be the worst, most awkward off balance and flailing person in class, yet still reap the benefit of this “intention”? I don’t know. But I do think the teacher may be the second resurrection of Christ.

So that’s two new songs in four days. I hit a wall at about 6pm tonight, but it was still too light out to binge watch TV. Hence the old tapes.

I admit I recently filled out some application for a songwriter gig. One question asked “how many songs have you written?” Well, when I started this blog it was 100, and I’ve written a bit since, so I just wrote that I lost count after 150. Over the course of the next few days, I felt a need to quantify as I obsessively did when I was in my thirties. I started writing them down and couldn’t get past 55! Why did I dream up this 100 number? I swear I wrote that many, and maybe I can’t think of them all? This is why I dug up all these dusty tapes. Before I change my bio on this blog, or my answer on that job application, I’d like an opportunity to prove myself wrong. First, by digging up old songs I’d forgotten about. Secondly by finishing as many new songs as I possibly can and adding them to the list.

This tape has Farrell/Katy 2004 written on it. Blue Aisles was written after a breakup when I was 35 years old and any hope I had to ever get married was crushed. It’s really difficult to write about such defeating, depressing, hopeless emotions. But I have to remind myself that just because I’m allowing them, and expressing them, doesn’t necessarily mean I’m putting a hex on myself. The universe, as it turned out, had other plans for me. I met my future spouse 2 months after this recording.