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What is Area 52 anyway? The Evil Twin Theory Nervous Nero Music contact Discuss The Area 52 Project Don't give because you have some extra change and want to show your appreciation. Do it because you love America. Or do it for the first reason. I don't care, either one is fine. Songfight.org |
Please read that first, and then jump on into the songs below.] * * * * * 27. Start Over (2:19) This little breakup song was originally written pretty much a cappella, which sounded great in my head, but after picking up and listening to Smile, I realized that I didn't know nearly enough to make this song sound good that way (yet), and so I brought the guitar back into the mix. Ah, guitar. You're a dear, dear friend. I'd be a homeless bad poet without you. 26. Motor Psycho (5:00) I started with the idea of this completely unhinged chauffeur taking someone on a hell ride to their doom, but this wound up being a bit more, I guess the word is hopeful, than that. And I know this is a total bullshit rockstar cliché, but this song sounds damn good when played loud. 25. American Ruse (3:21) How dare you lose faith in me. Here, in time for the RNC, is a cover of an MC5 song that's both still pretty relevant (or again, whichever) these days, and cute in that late-60's-earnest-anger way that the kids might want to daub a bit of behind their ears this week. 24. Let It Be (3:04) Following up last week's big win, this week I try to do an all-acoustic punked-up Otis Redding fronting Blue Cheer kind of sound. Yeah, it's about a suicide, but it's not about me, and it's a glamorous Virginia Woolfish kind of self-offing, not the other messy kind. Okay, no it's not. It's actually about a kind of ritual baptism-slash-epiphany after an awful day. Okay, I'm just making shit up now. 23. In Full Effect (2:24) I always marvel at people managing to have decent conversations with all the (non gender specific) ugly-stepsister preening and artificial shit going down in the night world. And yet it happens. (This song won the Songfight for its week. Thanks a lot to you.) 22. Sincerity Machine (2:34) This jaunty little piece about communication breakdown is the first song this year to use both pants and drums as percussion. This doesn't say as much about the added quality of the song as it does about the fact that I'm actually developing a sense of rhythm, right in front of your very eyes. My future bandmates rejoice inwardly. 21. Hey Ruth (2:55) This week, I had to go up into the hills north of Westchester to give birth to a litter. Fortunately, I didn't have to stay, as the dingoes came right on cue. Good thing, though, because well, this week's song has all the fire of a seventeen year old girl's angst. This, in short, is my tribute to Dido's No Longer A Girl, Not Yet A Woman. Or whatever the hell it was called. You know, I saw Crossroads, and they played that damned song like eight times in it, and I can't for the life of me remember a fucking note of it. This one has the edge on Britney Spears's version in that Britney isn't actually singing it. Again, you're welcome. 20. A Promise Is A Promise (2:17) This Johnny-Cashish clay piece would have been ready yesterday, but I figured I'd give it another day of screaming my lungs out at karaoke to see if I could hit the low notes in the morning. (It worked, if only barely.) I honestly think I'm getting better at filling a room with not all that many instruments, and I'm starting to feel consistently good about the quality of these songs. Next week's is almost done, too, a fact which fills me with the kind of glee I usually only reserve for the latest American Idol fake sex scandal or the latest oddly-named celebrity baby. 19. 12 Monkeys (3:21) In which a chimpanzee named Ming gets trapped in an artificial fantasyland and punches a security guard. It sounds bad, but there's a happy ending. It involves sock monkeys and the refusal to learn Klingon. (Note: there's no mention of Bruce Willis or Brad Pitt in this week's song, despite the title. Hollywood is not the boss of me, now.) 18. Pass/Fail (3:00) In which I drop science about Sonic Youth & West Side Story like I'm carrying too much from the cradle to the couch to the crutch to the grave, drop the beat in the bridge like I got smacked in the head, yodel through a temporarily croaky prepubescent William Burroughs voice and carry on about achieving lowered expectations like the Hell's Kitchen Angsta which up until a month ago I was. Despite all that, this song still swings pretty good. Check it out. 17. Lia (2:57) A pretty little song about the downside of love, as told from just outside your intended's bedroom window. I originally wrote this for Bea Arthur, but the name didn't scan right in the chorus. (Bea, baby. Call me. I have casserole and wine.) 16. Emily Post (3:15) A story of a great getaway, or a tableau shot of a bus station waiting room, whichever turns your crank more. Features bug sex, Vietnam widows, and the knowledge that the glorious future is always ten minutes away. This song is only three minutes long. Listen to it three times, and voila! Glorious future! 15. I Can Only Give My Heart (5:35) A few years ago I read in some book a translation of this old French folk song which had the lines "I am a poor man, I have nothing, I can only give my heart," and I thought, I can make a mess out of that. It took me until now, but I hereby present unto you that mess. I have to put up an FAQ page, if only to be able to point to something every time someone asks me "Do all your songs sound like this?" (A: If by this you mean superhott Soviet-era porn-jazz for kids, then yeah, I guess.) 14. Tanzania (3:01) There. Not only are we caught up now, but with this track we begin what will be Disc Two of what will be a four disc set at the end of the year. (The four discs will also be sold separately. Your parents have to get it together.) This little piece of rockoutwithyourcockout about watching a National Geographic special while your sweetie sleeps in your lap is an answer to all the hateful songs I've written about how people suck. They don't all suck. Just the awake ones. 13. Under The Subway (2:20) This is yet another broken-relationship song, but don't read too much into it. Like all the others, both the characters in the song are me. I am more solipsistic and self-obsessed than you could ever imagine. I make Marcel fucking Proust look like Mother fucking Theresa. Also, I'm proud of the line 'All Love is Evol,' more than I should be. Pride is a sin. Mel Gibson tole me so. 12. Not Mine (3:30) I worked out this elaborate percussion part, so elaborate that I bought a real drum to play it. Then it turned out the part sounded better on the bass, so hey, more to the good. The song itself is a tender story of helplessness, set against a backdrop of nursery rhymes nihilist existentialism. I think it's pretty hot. 11. Knit Me A Sweater (A Scarf Will Do) (3:20) Over the course of the next forty weeks or so, there are going to be some genuinely innovative songs, sonic and pop-structural experiments in which I shall test your attention spans and ability to process the new sounds and points of view coming out of your speakers or headphones or iPod or whatever. This week, though I present nothing of the sort. This week's opus, aside from being a song about cold weather which I'm releasing during the end of the cold season, is an exercise in grafting two of my favorite influences together to form something I figured would be cool. Guess which two and I'll give you a prize. I have prizes, you know. 10. My Eyes, Once (4:06) I wrote this coming back from Chicago a couple of weeks ago. While there, I saw an old friend acting in a commercial for a product that might be embarrassing if they showed it here, where she lived. Instead, her shame spreads into other markets worldwide. (Kinda like Lost In Translation, except everyone concerned speaks fair English.) This week's percussion instrument is Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary (1996 Edition, 2230 pp., Gramercy Press). 9. Drown If You Want (3:14) Technical notes: The jeans I used for percussion were pale blue Bugle Boys with a large paint stain on the left leg. Seriously. This song also features the best guitar solo I have ever committed to tape. Next up: the G3 tour. Watch your ass, Malmsteen! 8. Frisbee (3:31) I had a whole horn section worked out for this song, but then when I recorded it, it just sounded like a hive of bees harmonizing, and that sounded alright. What does this mean to you? Well, you can bet no song you hear this year will feature a better kazoo solo than this one. 7. My Heart Comes Back To You (2:48) I'm posting this one a little early, because it's Valentine's Day and I'm going to be in Chicago, celebrating the death of some Presidents by getting rid of some dead presidents of my very own. I wish you love for you and yours, but most of all, I wish you love for me. 6. New Orleans Postcard (2:29) This really happened, more than a few times, during the week I was down there. I was easily drunk enough that I didn't give a Flying Picket what day it was. As long as I didn't miss my plane, I didn't care, and it was great. 5. The Echo Apartment (2:57) An attempt to write something a little bigger with a little less instrumentation. I might come back to this song when I learn how to make stadium rock anthems, but until then, here you go. 4. My Love Goes With You (2:39) I wrote this song during a crying jag when I'd heard about what Liza Minelli had done to poor David Gest, but really, it applies just as much to Ben & Jen, or to me losing my house keys. Some things, y'know, just can't be replaced if you lose them. I have a squeaky rubber chicken toy on my key chain now. I won't lose it ever again. 3. Earthquake Blues (3:45) We have now progressed to songs with two words in the title. Back when I just wanted to put out a regular boring old CD, this was going to be the title track, despite it not really being a blues song and having only a scant reference to earthquakes. Yes, the drum machine is mixed very high. I actually did that on purpose. 2. Paris (4:24) I was gonna take another shot at singing this one, but then I'd be at it for months and there's no guarantee I'd like the end result any better. The opening is supposed to have that Ass Ponysish feedback thing going for it, but all I have is an acoustic guitar, and after listening to it about 200 times this week I kind of like the effect of just laying down two guitar tracks and two backing vocal parts and implying the space, instead of doing something weedly-weedly-wee on some harmonium or something to fill in every gap like the song is some Phil Spectory brick wall. Oh, and I know you can hear the edit parts where I punched the tracks in and out, because I'm still learning how to do this stuff. 1. Different (2:33) I wrote this at an open mike, but that's not really what it's about. I bet you think this song's not about you. Don't you? Don't you? bedspreads comforters |