The Three Day Album Project

Been working on the same song – “Hyde” – for hours. I’ve had a bunch of braindead moves, then had the strangest of epiphanies, resulting in me collapsing into a giggling mess and Gayleen thinking I’ve lost my mind. Serves her right for providing direction. More on that in a minute.

It began with me beating my head against a stucco wall in the dark. Why can’t I figure out the arrangement? Why is it so weird? Why doesn’t this all fit?

I then realized I was only hearing half the song, that the mix of piano and vocals I had imported into my software synth studio program was missing about 90 per cent of Gayleen’s vocals. I went back to the original and wow! There’s supposed to be singing over all this open sparse stuff. Duh. So I re-outputted the original mix, with vocals.

“I think I hear a rockbeat under this song, actually,” Gayleen tells me as I fiddle with a virtual drum machine.

No problem, I think. I can do a rock song. Piece of cake.

I come up with something, but it’s a struggle. And I have a few more “why did I just do that?” technical glitches hold me up, I have the track ready to add some guitar. I strum a part off the top of my head. Sounds good. Sounds — too good. 1984 good. What the –?

I realize something. The song I’ve just made is a dead ringer for Platinum Blonde. Big, produced rock drums. Finger-strummed eighth-note bass guitar line. And now a perfectly Blonde-ish 80s guitar part. Dead on.

I fall back in my chair and laugh my ass off. Gayleen stares. I tell her what I’ve just done to her perfectly nice song. She hears it too and laughs too (a good sign). Pretty good sport, considering I just dressed up her song in big blonde hair and mascara.

If it was my own song, I’d thinkwhat I just did was pretty damn cool, actually. But it’s not my song. It’s Gayleen’s song. So I apologize profusely. But it’s too late on the third day to turn back. It’s Blonde or nothing. I apologize again.

So now Gayleen is rerecording her vocals to fit the rockin’ mess I just created.

Chris

Yes, for the first time (and likely last time) ever, I listened to a track I was working on and thought “you know what I think this needs? More accordion.”

But that’s exactly what happened with our cover version of The National’s “The Geese of Beverly Road”. Hoppin’, yee-hawww version. With accordion. I normally hold a lot of distaste for accordion. It ranks slightly higher than bagpipes and Celtic fiddles. Just goes to show – man, you never know where these songs are going to go!

Once Gayleen is done rerecording her vocals to this track, we’ll have six songs done, four to go.

Chris