tag:johnmuther.com,2005:/blogs/blog?p=2Blog2023-01-18T15:36:44-07:00John Mutherfalsetag:johnmuther.com,2005:Post/64367062020-09-17T16:04:15-07:002020-09-17T16:04:15-07:00Super secret project! Your strict confidence is appreciated.<p>Hi there. Listen to this thing I made for a super secret project.</p>0:57John Muthertag:johnmuther.com,2005:Post/64189822020-08-27T18:22:56-07:002020-08-27T18:22:56-07:00Cover Day! Karma Chameleon by the Culture Club<p>Here is a cover of the song Karma Chameleon by the rock and roll band Culture Club.</p>
<p>Released in September 1983, this song was written by Boy George, Jon Moss, Mikey Craig, Roy Hay, and Phil Pickett. It was the band's top charting hit in the US and won a bunch of awards and stuff.</p>
<p>My good friend Robert J. Baumann suggested doing a roots-y cover of this song years ago and that idea stuck. I finally did it this year.</p>
<p>Hey Culture Club alums: please don't sue me.</p>6:28John Muthertag:johnmuther.com,2005:Post/60870902020-01-11T12:45:03-07:002020-01-11T12:48:51-07:00Cold War Demo<p>Oh, hi. Here is a demo for the song Cold War. Enjoy.</p>4:51John Muthertag:johnmuther.com,2005:Post/60619592020-01-05T11:37:16-07:002020-01-05T11:37:16-07:0017 (Demo )<p>Here is a demo of a song called "17". Enjoy.</p>2:51John Muthertag:johnmuther.com,2005:Post/60619492016-04-03T17:00:00-07:002016-04-04T12:41:34-07:00Track 13 - If You Say
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">Track 13 – If You Say</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">Once again, I got this idea while taking a walk. As I was walking, I said aloud to myself, “I’m gonna walk my legs off.” The image of someone walking so much that their legs fall off, like in Looney Tunes or something, was very funny to me. I start spinning out the consequences of walking my legs off. Suddenly the song was writing itself.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%;"><span style="font-style:normal"><span style="text-decoration:none">I used a lot of the same end rhyme in each verse, which is very fun. I made a lot of jokes and references. The lines move pretty quick, so it has a very impressive sound. </span></span><span style="font-style:normal"><span style="text-decoration:none">Yet again, I make use of the unhinged narrator, </span></span><span style="font-style:normal"><span style="text-decoration:none">who, while imagining his own dismemberment, builds an epic sense of grandeur before it collapses on itself and returns to mundane reality. I get a lot of positive feedback on this song, so I think it is a good one to end the album.</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%;"><span style="font-style:normal"><span style="text-decoration:none">This song reflection project has been strange. It is super self-indulgent, but, as an “internet savvy” “artist”, I’m required to be self-indulgent. It has revealed to me a number of recurring themes, techniques, traits, that I may not have seen so clearly otherwise. I have been sitting on a </span></span><span style="font-style:normal"><span style="text-decoration:none">lot of these songs for many years and it is good to get them “out”, even if they are not perfect. It has also been an attempt at overcoming several years of some kind of “writer’s block”, and I think it has been helpful.</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%;"><span style="font-style:normal"><span style="text-decoration:none">I don’t think I will do this again. For my taste, it pulls back the curtain too much perhaps. Maybe pulls back the wrong curtain. However, I hope it has been at least interesting for a few listeners to see some of the songwriter’s thoughts behind specific songs.</span></span></p>
John Muthertag:johnmuther.com,2005:Post/60619482016-03-29T17:00:00-07:002016-03-30T11:31:33-07:00Track 12 - Good Morning, Mourning Dove
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">Track 12 – Good Morning, Mourning Dove</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">This is another bird song from a time when bird-kitschy stuff was at its apex. I was walking down the street once and I heard a mourning dove. Out loud I said, “Good morning, mourning dove.” This may sound like a fib, but I immediately thought, “Great. I have to write a song about that now.” So, here it is.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%;"><span style="font-style:normal"><span style="text-decoration:none">At this time in my life, I was listening to BBC news to fall asleep. I realized after a while that it was all bad news about war and violence. I also realized that it was not helping me get to sleep, so I stopped doing that. </span></span><span style="font-style:normal"><span style="text-decoration:none">The conceit of this song is that a slightly unhinged speaker (surprise, surprise) is addressing a nearby bird and projecting all their problems onto the bird. It also has an apocalyptic ending that was inspired by the lakefront in Milwaukee, WI.</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">This is a song that has grown on me with time. I didn’t think it was anything special when I wrote it, but as I listen to it now, I really enjoy it. I feel for the character. The images work. I like how the syllables fall in the melody. I like how the sentences don’t always end with the lines. Some of the word play is fun, but not so silly as to undermine the tone of the song. Good job, John.</p>
John Muthertag:johnmuther.com,2005:Post/60619472016-03-27T17:00:00-07:002016-03-28T13:59:16-07:00Track 11 - Ghosts and Plastic Bags
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">Track 11 – Ghosts and Plastic Bags</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%;"><span style="font-style:normal"><span style="text-decoration:none">Once I saw a plastic bag moving in the wind. I always get worried people are going to think of </span></span><em><span style="text-decoration:none">American Beauty</span></em><span style="font-style:normal"><span style="text-decoration:none"> when I say that, but it wasn’t caught in an updraft and beautiful to my artistically enlightened mind. No indeed. It was upside down and moving horizontally down the sidewalk. It looked like a </span></span><span style="font-style:normal"><span style="text-decoration:none">P</span></span><span style="font-style:normal"><span style="text-decoration:none">ac-</span></span><span style="font-style:normal"><span style="text-decoration:none">M</span></span><span style="font-style:normal"><span style="text-decoration:none">an ghost. </span></span><span style="font-style:normal"><span style="text-decoration:none">It made me think, “What if ghosts lived in plastic bags?” After some thought I decided, “No, plastic bags, in fact, ARE ghosts!” I immediately started writing a song about it.</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%;"><span style="font-style:normal"><span style="text-decoration:none">This is a road song. I also features a few of the favorite tropes. These are the slightly unhinged speaker, and the trajectory from pretty much normal to spiraling out of control. I wrote this song with a melodic range too wide for me to sing, so I have always sung an ‘altered’ version. Also, I frequently forget the words to this song. It can be embarrassing, but usually it is just funny. If you write songs with a lot of words, you are bound to forget some of them. There is an eco-message in one verse, very thinly veiled. There are a few jokes. There is a sort of cinematic image I was trying to achieve at one point. </span></span><span style="font-style:normal"><span style="text-decoration:none">But, it really is all about some kind of Robert Frost ‘road not taken’ business.</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%;"><span style="font-style:normal"><span style="text-decoration:none">At the beginning of this recording you get a taste of the sort of stage banter I engaged in at the time. People would often tell me I was very funny. I thought I was just talking. In the middle of this recording you can hear me either break a string or drop my pick. I don’t remember which. I say, “Whoops!” when it happens. I am proud to say that I just keep trucking. At the end of this recording, you can hear my good friend Erick saying, “Play that one again.” I thought I had edited out that part of the recording, but there it is. That is just about the biggest </span></span><span style="font-style:normal"><span style="text-decoration:none">compliment </span></span><span style="font-style:normal"><span style="text-decoration:none">I can think of, someone wanting to hear my song again.</span></span></p>
John Muthertag:johnmuther.com,2005:Post/60619462016-03-25T17:00:00-07:002016-03-26T07:52:11-07:00Track 10 - Every Trick in the Book
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">Track 10 – Every Trick in the Book</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">While I often fabricate song origins at performances, I usually tell the truth about this one. The thing is that this one started in many different places. I read the book <em>The Great Train Robbery</em> by Michael Crichton and loved it. I loved the goofy slang and the crazy plot. And they got away with it! Is this book great literature? No. But it is a decent read. That is one point of origin for this song. Also, once I was driving in Arizona and I encountered the most beautiful scenery I’ve ever seen. That was another point of origin. Also, at a certain time in Milwaukee, WI, there were cranes all over the skyline of the south side of the city. And, in the movie <em>Charade</em> there is a evening showdown scene in a colonnade involving Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn and Walter Matthau. And so on. </p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">This is a list song. I’ve got a few others and it is a pretty common way to write a song. Unlike most of my songs, this song is not linear. Apart from the lists, it is really just a string of unrelated images. What puzzles me is that it really seems to work. It works for listeners and is works for me. The theme at the heart is really a conflict between my romantic view of the urban and my romantic view of the wilderness. Also, I think there is a morality lesson about being polite somewhere too.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%;"><span style="font-style:normal"><span style="text-decoration:none">I don’t really like this recording. I think the recording on available here (</span></span><a href="http://bit.ly/22P8ycD" data-imported="1">bit.ly/22P8ycDb</a>)<span style="font-style:normal"><span style="text-decoration:none"> is much better. Listening back to it, I’m not sure why I included this version. But it does demonstrate the way I’ve played this song hundreds of times at performances. I originally wrote this song on the piano, and I would like someday to represent that on a recording, but on the other hand, it may be time to move on.</span></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%;"><span style="font-style:normal"><span style="text-decoration:none">Oh, and also, you know that part at the end of this recording that I didn’t write? Please don’t tell anyone that I did that. I don’t want to get sued.</span></span></p>
John Muthertag:johnmuther.com,2005:Post/60619452016-03-14T17:00:00-07:002016-03-15T00:05:06-07:00Track 9 - A Song About Birds
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">Track 9 – A Song About Birds</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">Here is a song that is not actually very good. I made a lot of jokes at the time about writing bird songs because it was fashionable. I didn’t realize how true that was.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">The song began because I was visiting my parent on a snowy weekend. Late one evening we took a walk in the park across the street. There was a lot of new snow and it was very quiet. Then we heard again and again Great Horned Owl calls. As we walked we saw many of these owls calling to each other from the tops of trees and street lights.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">So, I took that beautiful scene and transformed it into this meaningless, heavy handed parable about like the environment and stuff, I guess. I was trying to work with some different chords. I was trying to write in an earthy, folky style. I was trying to explore the feelings of urban living with a desire for something other than urban living. I did each of these things more successfully in other songs. What I will for this song is that it does a pretty good job painting a few scenes for the listening.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">The recording is good. Jangly guitar, which is what I was into at the time, trying to compensate for the lack of a band or more instruments. My voice cracks at some point, because I am a chronic over-singer. I’m not embarrassed. I think this mediocre song really comes across well in this recording.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">If I don’t like the song, you might ask why I included it here. Well, I’ll tell you. I recorded this song for a ‘fundraiser’ disc that I used to fund part of my second album. After recording that version of the song, I wrote a bridge section that vastly improved the song. I would say that it improved the song by 100-150% That is a lot! I wanted this song to exist somewhere with this beneficial bridge. I can stop thinking, “I really should record that one with the bridge.” I can close the door on this song.</p>
John Muthertag:johnmuther.com,2005:Post/60619442016-03-09T17:00:00-07:002016-03-09T07:18:11-07:00Track 8 - A New List
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">Track 8 – A New List</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">Here is another song, like “Baseball Diamond” that went through many titles. I don't remember them in this case, perhaps because I ended up finding the right one.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">“A New List” has a little more personal experience closer to the surface than many of my songs. I won't tell you which part, and I won't tell you how I disguised it, but it is certainly there. I will tell you that I really did know a cat named Lola. While this song isn't the top shelf material that “An Estimation Song” is to me, it certainly isn't rail either. I found the feeling I was aiming for through somewhat blunt or obvious means.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">When I wrote this song, I was writing a lot about the idea of “home”. This song may be the culmination of that trajectory of writing. Ah, no it isn't. I just remembered on more song that is not on this album. Shucks. Well, then it is the penultimate “home” song of that epoch. Unlike many of my songs, this one has no narrative per se. Rather, I just give a series of images. The narrative is not literal, but an emotional development as the images succeed one another. I don't know if anyone else feels what I do, but what do I care? I wrote these songs for myself, not anyone else!</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">I will reveal another bit of biography in this song. I do indeed make a lot of lists.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">This recording is pretty good. I usually put this near the end of a set, and so my voice is usually a little worn out when I sing this one. That is true in this recording. I actually wrote this song at the piano, and I do intend to record it that way some time. There is a section that I would like to hear “on tape” that I am simply not able to replicate on guitar.</p>
John Muthertag:johnmuther.com,2005:Post/60619432016-03-06T17:00:00-07:002016-03-07T01:03:28-07:00Track 7 - An Estimation Song
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">Track 7 – An Estimation Song</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">There is a lot of pithy, quotable stuff about creative work and stealing ideas. It is all pretty much true, as far as I can tell. With this song, my goal was to write a love song without any of the typical love language. I did this by imagining that the speaker lived, more or less, inside of Orwell's <em>1984</em>. All the normal language for emotional love is eradicated, and so the speaker struggles to express the feeling in the language available. I think the song began with the bridge line, “I esteem you, comrade, more than I esteem my other comrades.”</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">You'll see here again me in denial about the desire to write love songs just like you see it in “Let's Write a Love Song”, “Bitter/Better”, and probably others as well. Some day I should write a bunch of love songs of the ooh-baby-baby variety, just to see how it goes. It might be great. Perhaps that is my true talent, and I am wasting it by being too highfalutin.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">This may be one of my favorite songs. I wrote in another entry about song-craft, and I think this is a good example of successful song-craft from me. I had a specific premise and goal. I achieved the goal while holding closely to the premise. While I did those things, I also find the song communicates emotionally. There are lines that surprise me with their effectiveness every time I sing or hear this song. The real joy is that I hit all the marks I was aiming for. That must be how Kanye West feels all the time.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">This present recording is pretty good. It is confident, even though I know I wasn't sure about the form of the chorus yet. The tempo is very solid and well chosen, not too fast, not too slow. Although I like this recording, I think this song deserves better. I hope to do this some day with a few more instruments and an arrangement that complements the success of the lyrics.</p>
John Muthertag:johnmuther.com,2005:Post/60619422016-02-02T17:00:00-07:002016-02-03T11:45:49-07:00Track 6 - Baseball Diamond
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">Track 6 – Baseball Diamond</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">Picking good titles is hard, right? I'm not just imagining that, am I? This song went through several titles. The one's I remember are anti-titles, like “Ode to Whatever” and “Long, Stupid Song About Nothing”. The latter was the official title for this song for quite a while. A friend told me this was a bad title. He was right, that is a bad title. So, as I was editing tracks for this album, I was trying to come up with a better one. I did come up with a better one. It was a good title. It had the same tone as the song, was memorable, not too serious, not too jokey. I forgot that title, so I just used the first image of the song, a baseball diamond. Now I can spend the rest of my life wondering what that other, better title was.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;"> When I started this song, I was aiming for a drinking song style. I was also trying for that style in the song “Cost of Living”. Neither song ended up quite that way. This one turned into a pseudo folk ballad thing. I also started this song entirely as a joke. I meant the whole song to be silly, non-sensical. The speaker in this song is one of my favorite kinds of speakers, one that sounds reasonable to begin with, more or less, but spins out of proportion the more they are allowed to speak. This is such a character. There is all kinds of melodramatic stuff in this song that I find funny, like “through caffeine and TV screens all my passion's been diffused” or “with a body cut from sorrow and strings wound tight with scars”. When you make up songs, though, they often end up doing their own thing despite you. Also, sometimes you try to write non-sense and some real opinions start emerging any way. Oops. I won't tell you which is which, though. I have another friend who called this kind of joking, “kidding on the square”. That is what is going on in a lot of this song. </p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">This performance is not great. You can tell, even in the first two lines that I hadn't decided how I was going to sing this melody before it was coming out of my mouth. So, there are plenty of sour pitches, and strange melodic choices. But, it keeps truckin' right along with confidence and in the right tone, which is why it made the cut.</p>
John Muthertag:johnmuther.com,2005:Post/60619412016-01-08T17:00:00-07:002016-01-09T12:19:30-07:00Track 5 - 19th C
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">Let it be known that I was a fan of the six-part A&E Pride and Prejudice mini-series before it was cool.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">Anyway, I used to always announce this song by saying, “This song is about Jane Austen.” Often when I announce a song by saying, “This song is about . . .”, whatever follows is invented on the spot. (If you listened to the previous track, “Home”, you can hear an example of this.) However, this song was indeed inspired by Jane Austen, more or less.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">I was sitting on the front steps of my friends' house, waiting to attend a professional baseball game. At the time I was living roughly 30 miles away from these friends. I thought about how in the Jane Austen's books, a visit to friends that lived 30 miles away was a visit of a least a week, if not the whole season, rather than an afternoon. So, the first line of the song appeared in my mind. Similarly to “Bitter/Better”, I liked the rhythm of this line and it had enough momentum for my imagination to carry it through the rest of the song.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">I do love Jane Austen. I am aware that part of the appeal for me is my idealized, romantic view of a time period not my own. When I read (or watch) Pride and Prejudice, I do not think about the silent, ever-present servants. I don't think about the classes of people that had to exist to support the leisure class characters I'm reading about. I think about how Elizabeth lets rip constant zingers and how well Darcy writes that one letter. This is where the rest of the song comes from.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">“19<sup>th</sup> C” is an early example of “songcraft” in my work, I think. I had a clear mental concept and I did what I could to execute it lyrically. I used a super simple pop chorus (something I'm not the best at) and the most standard of pop song forms (verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, verse, chorus). I think it came off pretty well. This particular performance is the result of playing this song in every set for years. It is quick and clean. Sometimes I forget about songs I've written. I had forgotten about this song. But hearing it again, especially this confident performance, I really like it.</p>
John Muthertag:johnmuther.com,2005:Post/60619402016-01-05T17:00:00-07:002016-01-06T01:46:07-07:00Track 4 - Home (Right Lane for the Right Turn)
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">Track 4 - Home (or Right Lane for the Right Turn)</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">I think the words to this song are pretty much self-explanatory. No secrets here. Nor did I add any weak personal jokes in this one. This is strange, because that is pretty much the only way I write anything. I did put a joke in the subtitle of the song. 'Right' can mean the direction or it can mean 'correct'. I saw a road marking once that said this, and I liked the idea that I was being told to be in the correct lane for the correct turn.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">If I remember accurately, this song was created in the car. For a few years I drove a certain stretch of highway repeatedly. That sort of repetition gives a person a sense of familiarity. I would say that, at least in my case, this is a false sense of familiarity. I didn't know anything about this landscape that wasn't superficial, but I felt close to it anyway. I wrote this song about this and extended this idea to the idea of “home.” I made up some stuff about things with which I had no experience (typical writing trick), and *boom*, I had a song.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">Let me tell you a funny story about this song:</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">This song has gone through many versions. The version on this recording is how I have played it for a long time. My second recording “Right Lane for the Right Turn” has the original version. There was a brief time when I was playing a bit with a couple fellows named Aytan Luck and Chris Lubinski. Aytan played trumpet and Chris played banjo. We three played another version yet. It was fun and up tempo.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">You may have heard me mention that I 'earn' a fraction of a penny on Spotify when people play a song of mine. One day I thought, “I haven't listened to my recordings in years. I'll give them all a spin on Spotify and earn about 10 cents in the process. Cha-ching!” So, I listened through all my 'catalog'. It was good. I felt like Kanye West or something, just hanging out and listening to my own tunes. I got to the last track, which happened to be “Home (or Right Lane for the Right Turn)” from the album “Right Lane for the Right Turn”.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">But, instead of the drum machine, electric guitar version on my album, what did I hear? I heard crowd sounds. I heard Aytan on trumpet. I heard Chris on banjo. I heard a very sloppy and unpolished, but fun and up tempo version of “Home”. I know that this was recorded at Imagine Cafe (RIP) in West Bend, WI. I know we played with Heligoats (Chris Otepka), who played with a violinist that night in a performance that was extremely memorable to me. I even know the person who recorded it. What I do not know is how it got on the Internet.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">Oh well. As with everything, the Internet has called “No Take-Backs”.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">I am happy to have this new, live version of this song, because it was a staple of my set for many years.</p>
John Muthertag:johnmuther.com,2005:Post/60619392015-12-22T17:00:00-07:002015-12-23T04:37:24-07:00Track 3 - Bitter/Better (in the tradition of carpe diem)
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">When I was getting my English degree, I learned about 'carpe diem' poems. As I recall, the requirements for being a 'carpe diem' poem are the following:</p>
<ol>
<li>A love poem in the voice of the woo-er addressed to a reluctant woo-ee</li>
<li>The woo-er must be persuading the woo-ed</li>
<li>The woo-er must make lavish, unfulfillable promises</li>
<li>The woo-er must also present the threat of death, in a looming, existential way or otherwise.</li>
</ol>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">As I learned this I thought, “Oh, OK. This is every pop love song ever.” If I were teaching this topic, I would use Billy Joel's “Only the Good Die Young” as an example, because it might as well have been written specifically for classroom use.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">This idea bounced around my head for a while, until it met up with another idea I often have: “Well, I could do <em>that</em>.” At the time I was looking for ways to avoid writing full-on love songs of the 'ooh baby baby' type. This genre, with its specific requirements, seemed like a perfect candidate. I can write a love song without encountering my own emotions at all. Yahoo!</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">I was walking down an alley in my hometown one day, and a sentence appeared in my mind. (My songs frequently originate this way.) It was: “If you move into one of the apartments above a dirty restaurant downtown, I'm gonna peal bricks out of the pavement and throw them at your window, throw them at your window.” I liked the rhythm of this sentence. The image was also funny, kind of over the top. The sort of reaction a character in a John Hughes film might have.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">I also noticed that if you changed a few, small words the meaning of the sentence changed completely. So, if I changed “you” to “we”, and “at your” to “out our” it is no longer a mad/sad destructive reaction, but a joyous/playful destructive reaction. Similarly John Hughes-y, to my mind. Even the title of the song is about this. If you change one letter in “bitter” you get the word “better”. Clever me.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">So, I had all ideas I needed for the song, and I knew the requirements I had to hit for the form. The rest was fill in the blank, more or less.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">The structure I used for this song is strange. Three choruses, two verses, and two bridge type things, and they are ordered a little like a rondo or something: ABCABCA. Not your standard pop song structure, I guess. In this recording, I whistled “El pueblo unido jamas sera vencido” during the first bridge section. At the time I was really into a set of piano variations on this tune by Frederic Rzewski. This piece is fantastic, and I recommend it. It is also over an hour long, whereas my song is only a little over three minutes. So, if you don't have time to listen to the Rzewski, listen to my song.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">Years after this recording, I played and even recorded this with my band, so the song has some staying power for me. Take a listen. You might like it too!</p>
John Muthertag:johnmuther.com,2005:Post/60619382015-12-20T17:00:00-07:002015-12-21T00:01:39-07:00Track 2 - Shoes
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">Track 2 – Shoes</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">I worked at a certain shoe store for a long time. When people learned this fact the most common response was, “Everybody needs shoes.” Fair enough. The particular store I worked at specialized to some degree in work boots. I helped a lot of gruff dudes buy steel toes. In general people wanted the following things from work boots: infinite durability, domestic manufacture, water proof, oil proof, cosmic ray proof, slip resistant, light as a feather, and dirt cheap.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">Some thing about that sales experience inspired at least the beginning of this song. I also felt I had 'something to say' in this song about labor unions or war or TV or something, but it really turned into an incomprehensible, condescending mish-mash. With hindsight, I think that was a OK. This is a catchy pop tune, and I think many catchy pop tunes are better when they are over confident and don't quite make sense.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">Musically, I have always enjoyed the guitar part. I have always heard this with a 'full band' in my head, and maybe there will be a chance to do it that way some day. There is a meter change in the bridge that works on me every time. And, I go from the bridge straightaway to the final double chorus. Nice and efficient. No need for a third verse here!</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">The singing on this recording is not very good, but I'm not ashamed. The style of this song is somewhat different than the jangly, strummy type of stuff I was mostly doing, which is a nice contrast. The tempo I took back in 2005 was pretty quick, but thankfully it gives the track energy rather than ruining the song. In the end, it made the cut.</p>
John Muthertag:johnmuther.com,2005:Post/60619372015-12-13T17:00:00-07:002015-12-14T00:42:24-07:00Track 1 - 500 lbs in a Room of One's Own
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style:normal">Track 1 – 500 lbs in a Room of One's Own</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style:normal">500 lbs is one of the earliest songs I wrote. You wouldn't know it from this recording, but it started as an imitation of 90's post-hardcore, specifically the band Braid. I had been playing this guitar part perhaps for years, trying different words with it. I still remember bits of those. I rejected those attempts because I was trying to</span><span style="font-style:normal">o</span><span style="font-style:normal"> hard to say something directly to the listener. </span><span style="font-style:normal">V</span><span style="font-style:normal">ery pedantic. </span><span style="font-style:normal">I knew that is not how (good) songs worked, but I couldn't </span><span style="font-style:normal">come up with</span><span style="font-style:normal"> anything else for a long time.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style:normal">Finally, I settled on something that bears many of the features of many how I still write songs today. The title, of course, is a play on the title of the famous Virginia Woolf piece which, to this day, I have not read, but fel</span><span style="font-style:normal">t</span><span style="font-style:normal"> an arrogant freedom to reference because of my Liberal Arts education. Another song (Bitter/Better) is more explicitly about this idea, but I love tiny changes in language </span><span style="font-style:normal">that</span><span style="font-style:normal"> completely change meaning. So, 'pounds' (GBP) becomes 'pounds' (lbs) and 'and' becomes 'in'. </span><span style="font-style:normal">This kind of wordplay also happens in the song, when verse one returns, slightly altered, as verse three. Such a clever boy am I!</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style:normal">From </span><span style="font-style:normal">the punny</span><span style="font-style:normal"> title I get an idea for a joke, more or less. What if there was an oppressive, totalitarian state which brutally enforced health standards on all citizens? What if, specifically, you were unhealthily over weight (500 lbs) and you were imprisoned (in a Room of One's Own) and and controlled until you met the state</span><span style="font-style:normal">'</span><span style="font-style:normal">s health standards? Now I have an idea for a song! </span><span style="font-style:normal">This is another recurring theme in my songwriting: totalitarian dystopias. Go figure. The “everything moves in circles” business, for all its frequent repetitions, actually has nothing to do with the theme of the song. It does </span><em>sort of</em><span style="font-style:normal"> refer to the form of the song and the return of the altered first verse, but really it was more of a “newspeak” </span><span style="font-style:normal">ripoff </span><span style="font-style:normal">idea, that this dystopia chose circles as one of its symbolic anchors.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style:normal">This kind of humor in songwriting can be a emotional shield. I certainly was using it that way, especially this early in my writing. </span><span style="font-style:normal">If the song is a joke, th</span><span style="font-style:normal">e</span><span style="font-style:normal">n I am not exposing myself </span><span style="font-style:normal">directly</span><span style="font-style:normal"> to the potential rejection or criticism of the listener. </span><span style="font-style:normal">Whew! This is very helpful to a coward like me. </span><span style="font-style:normal">However, I also found that having a literal topic can gain me the freedom to explore the more important content of the song. 'Show, don't tell', and all the normal Creative Writing 101 stuff. One interesting feature of this song, which I only realize as I write this, is that the speaker in the song is the </span><span style="font-style:normal">'</span><span style="font-style:normal">attendant</span><span style="font-style:normal">'</span><span style="font-style:normal"> (read: jailer), while the main character is the prisoner. The only way we learn about the prisoner is through what the </span><span style="font-style:normal">attendant</span><span style="font-style:normal"> says.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style:normal">In my mind, this song is my first 'hit'. I played this at open mics in my college town and people seemed to really enjoy it. </span><span style="font-style:normal">I think one reason people liked it is that the melody is slightly high in my vocal range, so I could really belt it out. This gives the vocal line a somewhat mournful, strident feel. I recorded it fast (on “5 Songs/5 Dollars”) and performed it fast week after week. This got boring to me. So, I slowed it down </span><span style="font-style:normal">and changed the guitar part significantly to what</span><span style="font-style:normal"> you hear on this album. I started doing funny things like singing some “Stairway to Heaven” lyrics in the bridge section, etc. </span><span style="font-style:normal">Thankfully, I got over that.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style:normal">As I listen to this song, I still like it. It is no “Like a Rolling Stone”, but I am proud of it. It is </span><span style="font-style:normal">humorous </span><span style="font-style:normal">and somehow emotionally resonant. </span><span style="font-style:normal">It is very interesting that such an early song is such a typical example of how I continue to write songs.</span></p>
John Muthertag:johnmuther.com,2005:Post/60619362015-12-09T17:00:00-07:002015-12-10T09:15:12-07:00Live Album?
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">When I started making pop music, it happened in two ways:</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">-4-track recordings with as many instruments and as much drum machine as possible.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">-Playing 3-song slots at open mics.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">At the time, these things seemed very separate. Over the years, people kept saying things like, “I like your recordings fine, but I wish you had something that was like your live show.” Foolishly, I took this as an affront to my autonomy as an artist. Who were <em>they</em><span style="font-style:normal"> to tell </span><em>me</em><span style="font-style:normal"> how to do my art stuff?</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style:normal">After ten years of contemplation, I've decided they were correct. Here is a live album. These particular tracks were all recorded at the The Coffee House (the-coffee-house.com), a little venue with a lot of history in Milwaukee, WI. They also happened to be recorded by one person, Sandy Weisto. </span><span style="font-style:normal">I am very thankful to both The Coffee House and Sandy, because they made these recordings possible and have been very kind to me.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style:normal">These tracks come from three different </span><span style="font-style:normal">years,</span><span style="font-style:normal"> 2005, 2007 </span><span style="font-style:normal">and</span><span style="font-style:normal"> 2008. </span><span style="font-style:normal">L</span><span style="font-style:normal">isten</span><span style="font-style:normal">i</span><span style="font-style:normal">ng </span><span style="font-style:normal">through these recording, I</span><span style="font-style:normal"> hear </span><span style="font-style:normal">great</span><span style="font-style:normal"> improvement </span><span style="font-style:normal">over that time</span><span style="font-style:normal">.</span><span style="font-style:normal"> </span><span style="font-style:normal">I removed all the songs that had too many mistakes. I removed all the embarrassing on stage chatter. All that is left is a baker's dozen of pretty good performances</span><span style="font-style:normal">. </span><span style="font-style:normal">Many of these </span><span style="font-style:normal">songs are already in my small r</span><span style="font-style:normal">ecording </span><span style="font-style:normal">catalog</span><span style="font-style:normal">, but more than half are what the industry calls “previously unreleased”. </span><span style="font-style:normal">I am happy these will “see” the “light of day”.</span><span style="font-style:normal"> </span><span style="font-style:normal">Fans of my tunes might notice that some </span><span style="font-style:normal">favorite</span><span style="font-style:normal"> </span><span style="font-style:normal">songs are missing. </span><span style="font-style:normal">That only means we have more to anticipate. How happy!</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;">I am very thankful to Dora Klunk, who drew the “cover art” for this digital release. She responded to my request with a very excellent picture. She is a maker of many cool things. I'm sure she would make something for you if she could.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%; text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-style:normal">Anyway, I love you and I think you are great. Take care. </span><span style="font-style:normal">E</span><span style="font-style:normal">njoy this music, if you dare.</span></p>
John Muthertag:johnmuther.com,2005:Post/60619352015-12-07T17:00:00-07:002015-12-08T09:35:40-07:00John Muther "Live Album"
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%;">Guess what everyone? My “Live Album” is out! This is a digital-only release and you can get it from most purveyors of digital music. Here are the ways that you can help me:</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%;">1. BUY IT! You can buy it from:</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%;">Me directly</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%;">CDBaby.com</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%;">iTunes</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%;">Amazon</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%;">Google</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%;">2. LISTEN TO IT! You can also listen to it on major streaming services, like:</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%;">Spotify</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%;">Slacker</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%;">Rdio</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%;">Rhapsody</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%;">I am usually paid about half a penny on each 'play' on these services, and it adds up!</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%;">3. REVIEW IT! Write a short review on any of the stores or services listed above.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%;">4. SHARE IT! Please also SHARE this with friends and family on social media. Link to my website or Facebook page. Post the track you like the best. This helps me more than you think!</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%;">If you are really feeling ambitious, you could do all four. It is not that hard. I don't have to tell you this, but the more music you buy from musicians, the more those musicians can buy groceries or replace the axles on their cars.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%;">I will be posting about this album track by track through the next month or so. Please watch my Facebook page and website for those postings. Let me know what you think!</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%;">Take care.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%;">John Muther</p>
John Muthertag:johnmuther.com,2005:Post/60619342015-06-11T17:00:00-07:002023-12-10T09:31:47-07:00Every Trick in the Book 7" Vinyl Single
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%;">Hello Friends. It has been quite some time since I “officially” released any music. Guess what? Here are two “new” tracks!</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%;"> </p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%;"><a href="http://johnmuther.com/music/s/every_trick_in_the_book1" data-imported="1">http://johnmuther.com/music/s/every_trick_in_the_book1</a></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%;"><a href="http://johnmuther.com/music/a/bitter__better" data-imported="1">http://johnmuther.com/music/a/bitter__better</a></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%;"> </p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%;">These were recorded at Velvet Sky Studios in Milwaukee, WI under the auspices of Cat Dracula Records. How can you get these bomb tracks? Allow me tell you.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%;"> </p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%;">For $7 you can get:</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%;">1) Every Trick in the Book / Bitter-Better 7” vinyl single.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%;">2) Download cards for mp3 versions of the above tracks</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%;">3) John Muther: Adventure Music bandanna (your choice of navy blue w/blue whale, green w/elk, red w/red fox, sky blue w/ arctic tern)</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%;"> </p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%;">(You'll cover shipping too.)</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%;"> </p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%;">Interested? Please contact me, and we will transact some business!</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%;"> </p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 100%;">Also, if you like the tunes, but don't have $7, please recommend it to friends. It helps a lot.</p>
John Muther