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Somewhere in this apartment, on the back of an unused band postcard was a list of 10-12 things to do that I was supposed to do the next morning, no doubt scratched out with a nearby marker found late the night before. Pretty simple stuff. A sample: (1) buy soap, (2) wash dishes, (3) find jeans (4) finish new song.
The first three are confidently crossed-out with a much more indelible marker, but #4 was going to take a little more time. By design, of course–items 5-12 would require some serious effort, and we procrastinators make lists like this all the time so we feel like we’re accomplishing something.
But I had real ambition to finish this song. After coming up with the simple portamento synth part and mining Garageband for a drum beat, the bass line wrote and played itself. This was the point in that afternoon when I made that list.
When I got to “(4) – finish new song”, I was going to try and come up with some sort of vocal, but decided to plug in the pedals and add a little noisy guitar. I recorded three tracks in three takes, with the idea that I’d listen to the parts later on and pick out my favorite bits.
Walking around with it 8 weeks later, I realize that listening to music to pick out your favorite bits. After 20 or so listens to this one, I realized I enjoyed looking around for them as much as I did hearing them.
I think I lost that list long before I got to #12. But I never got to vocals, and I like it just fine. Most importantly, now I can cross ‘post song’ off today’s list.
