Eclepto Funk Americana

I don’t write humorous songs.  In fact, up until two months ago, I had NEVER written a humorous song.  Audiences love them, and the response is usually great, but humorous songs didn’t seem to be my thing.  It’s not that I tried to write them and it didn't work; quite the contrary, it’s that one never showed up while I was writing.

Then last year, right before Christmas, I happened to see a video in Spanish, called “The Unemployment Song” or "Work Song" or "The Optimist" (the thing has more names than JAWEH).  It turns out the song is by a Colombian singer,  Crisanto Alonso Vargas, who does humorous songs.  The song is a list of things the narrator would do in order to make money in hard economic times.  Here's a video (there's like zillions of different ones).

The idea struck a chord, given the economic situation in the US (what, you haven’t noticed the unemployment figures lately?).  So I started to write a song in English along the same lines. I didn’t copy the melody and I didn’t use any of his lines, but the idea is basically the same: I’ll do x,y,z to make a living, with the x,y,z being funny/dangerous/surreal.

I jotted down a few lines (most of what is still the first verse), and after thinking about it, the phrase “will work for food” popped up.  That, I thought, is such a basic American thing that everybody would be able to realize from the beginning what the song was about.  But it is kind of a cliche, so I switched it to “I’ll work for water  / I’ll sing for food.” after that, it was just a matter of coming up with enough funny lines to keep the song going.

The day after writing most of the first verse, I started mucking around with my guitar, and I didn’t have to try much  before the present melody showed up. It was kind of a mixture of Bob Dylan and Arlo Guthrie, and it seemed very folky but yet with a bit of an edge.  The basic patter was G-C-D-G.  After playing around with that, I tried a few chords and ended up with a “refrain” of B-C-D-C-G for a whooping total of 4 chords, buddy!

Back to writing lines it was.  By the end of December, I had the first two verses.  I wanted the song to be funny but also poignant, and yes, I wanted my thoughts on current life in America to get in there too.  I also wanted to include culturally relevant things that people would identify with.  

By early January, I had the first three verses, and what I thought was a finished song.  After playing it a few times to get it down, I realized  I really needed a fourth verse to kind of tie things together, so back to work on that it was, and by mid January, the song was finished (except for a few changes to a line here and there since).

For me, the song represented two problems:

1.  I don’t write funny songs and I don’t want to be seen as a writer of funny songs (kudos to Weird Al nonetheless. The man is a genius). but that's a small problem since the chances of me being pigeonholed as anything are remote to metaphoric.

And 2. I want to write socially aware songs but it’s easy to turn off people if you’re perceived as being “too political” (whatever that means ... and in America, it basically means that you keep bringing up unpleasant realities in your stuff). but that's part of the stuff  i'm interested in ... so ... i like to do it.  (i had the same issue with my song "Stones.")

So, in a way, this was a perfect way to solve both problems: it’s a funny song, but it’s not JUST a funny song: it has some bite to it.  And it’s a political song, but it’s not JUST a political song, it’s also funny. hey. 

I’m not comparing myself, but in the early days, Bob Dylan was criticized for writing songs that were too “congratulatory” of his target audience, that privileged their “awareness” and praised their “hipness” without challenging their participation in the problems at hand.  Dylan resisted that, and basically said, “That’s what it takes to get heard.”  Later, I think, he went on to write some songs which did put a mirror up to his audience (“Like a Rolling Stone” is the best and least understood song of his to do this. Ask yourself, who is the “you” in the song?  You?  You bet.)

So ... I figured, hey, I’m no Bob Dylan, but if being funny is what it takes ... then being funny is what it takes.

Anyway, here’s the video for the song.  Hope you enjoy:

an artist more people should know about:

Gwenn Seemel paints portraits, knows how to show and sell them, and has phenomenal insight into the creative process.  i love her blog  and i follow her on Twitter.  a couple of days ago, she wrote an entry called The Artist's Self-Esteem, which is short but brilliant (shouldn't that be what art aspires to?).  struggling with self-doubt, she writes:

Then, at some point, I discovered a neat little trick that allowed me to believe in my work fully while still doubting the rest of myself.  I separated my work from my self.  I stopped looking at my paintings as an extension of me and started seeing them more as objects with their own lives to lead.

and she concludes:

Most importantly, the split means that criticism of my work doesn’t feel like criticism of me.  And that, in turn, means that I can listen to commentary—whether written and formal or spoken and casual—a lot more objectively.

i too have dealt (and continue to deal) with self-doubt and self-esteem issues (like, what creative type doesn't?).  my significant problem is my voice, which i have a lot of issues coming to terms with.  it's very difficult for me to listen to a song i have taped and not say "I am not a good singer" instead of "this song doesn't sound so good yet."

i never quite articulated the me/work split as Gwenn did, but reading her blog i realize that's exactly what i did.  what allowed me to keep singing was to realize that any one take or song IS NOT the totality of my singing.  i can have a bad take, or a song can be difficult for me to sing, but on the other hand, i also have nice takes and some songs are ideal for me to sing.

ultimately, this split allowed me to approach my LIMITATIONS a lot more sanely.  by thinking in terms of songs i could and could not do, this assessment was not an attack on me or my self-worth or what i was or wasn't as a person.  i was just talking about songs: this one i can do, this one i can't.  or at least not yet.

there is something terribly liberating about that. sometimes, low self-esteem keeps us from perceiving our true limitations.  and only when we see those limitations can we work within them AND work to push them in a sane manner.

thanks Gwenn

by late October of 2009, i was really down.  from my journal: "sick of my music. bad timing. got two more songs to finish for SuperNova."

why?  because i was focusing on the negative, on what wasn't working.  because i was nitpicking each take to the point that nothing i did was satisfactory.  because writing and recording songs wasn't fun anymore.  all i could see was how bad my equipment sounded, how poor my voice was, how crappy everything came across through speakers.

i think subconsciously at least i decided it was time for a change.  i decided to concentrate on what i could do (get slightly better equipment) and to lower the difficulty level: i don't have drums, so my drum tracks (a keyboard) sound like crap.  my amps are not exactly noiseless (even the Roland Cube) so noise was a problem.  mostly, my microphone forced me to practically shout into the mix, which is a disaster for me (i sing best holding back and letting lose only at selected (i.e. doable) parts).

so i put together the new setup (just a new preamp and mike, plus a free mixing program) and decided to just do vocals and guitar on the last two songs.  the first song i did was "Stones."  writing that song had been a challenge ... but a good one.  i felt i was trying to do things i had only thought about before, and it was working.  i felt the song achieved what i set out to do.  i liked the song.  i put off recording it for a while.  my memory went back to all the frustration of laying down track after track only to have the sound disgust me (yeah ... that's an accurate word). i didn't want to go through that again.

anyway, i finally got around to recording.  i did several guitar takes.  none of them were on, but i was close.  i actually liked having to work to get it.  it was ...  fun?  i then did a vocal take, from beginning to end.    i did several takes, trying to coax as much as i could out of my performance (never my strong suit).   and ... performing the song was .... fun.

the next song, "I'll Work for Water," was great fun to write,  but i was dreading recording it.  actually, after "Stones," i figured, hey, maybe this won't be so bad.  it took me a while to dive into "Stones," but i went right into "I'll Work for Water."  it took longer than "Stones" to finish, but it gave me the same feeling of satisfaction "Stones" did.  it was ... fun?

the difference was palpable.  when i improved my equipment a little and lowered my standards, when i wasn't going for studio-quality, full-band treatment, professional audio but was doing what i do -- writing a song, singing it as best i could --  i got a level of satisfaction i hadn't experienced in months, perhaps in over a year.

 the bigger change, it eventually dawned on me, was not the change of equipment and goals, but a much more subtle mental change:  i was going to do something i could do -- and i was going to stop struggling to do something i could not do.  and in the process, instead of constant frustration, i would rediscover ... satisfaction.

what's the point of doing something if the end result is being constantly dissatisfied?  well, if that dissatisfaction is temporary, if the possibility of success is real, then i suppose one must put up with the dissatisfaction for however long it takes to cross the finish line.

but my case was different.  i did try, for three collections (King of All the Beasts, Songs of Love and Bliss, and finally SuperNova) to go for that slick studio sound.  for a variety of factors, i kept the bar so far above my head that there was no possibility of jumping over it.  the result was predictable.  i did keep writing and recording, but i was miserable, down, and felt i could accomplish nothing. 

getting no satisfaction from what you do is poison.  you can only take it for so long.  i hear a lot of writers and painters and musicians (mostly writers) complain of how hard it is to write, of how miserable it is, of how they have to force themselves to do it.  i can see pushing yourself like that to get a novel through, to get it done (that's discipline).  but to go on like that year after year ... doesn't that do something to your creativity?  i think it nearly killed mine.

in my case, i decided to stop, back up, get a new start.  i could do simple songs with voice and guitar.  i'd start there.  they're fun.  they are satisfying.  maybe later on i'll start to add complexity again, slowly, to see how much i can push my new equipment and my new skills.

but i hope i don't lose sight of why it is i do what i do:  to feel the satisfaction of a song well written, to feel the pleasure of  performing a song to the best of my ability,   to have pleasure in my craft.   that is the ground in which future songs will be planted, and i hope they will grow better than in the soil of misery and frustration. 

bands more people should know about:

The Vulgar Boatmen (all two ... or three ... or four versions thereof)

I discovered the band that would become the Vulgar Boatmen in the late 1980's. I had returned to Indianapolis from Chicago to find a rich mix of bands making up the local scene. Among these groups was Right to Left, a band that I quickly began thinking of as a down-home Hoosier version of the Velvet Underground but with no trace of that band's New York art damage, more intimate than remote, and with an overt love of songs (Stax/Volt and Chicago rhythm & blues, country tunes, post-Beatles garage rock, and the propulsive drone of bands like The Feelies and New Order). Here was a band that effortlessly traversed sub-genres through finding in them a commonality with what was once called rock 'n' roll - a music built around simple chord structures, insistent rhythms and elliptical lyrics about everyday life. Here was a rock 'n' roll band you could dance to, and we did.

http://tinyurl.com/ybu8an3

... and why the South is the true home of Indie ... y'all

Throw in a languid pace of life perfect for musical tinkerers, cheap rents, nice weather, non-competitive club scenes, huge college towns, an oppositional relationship with big cities and big media, plus the fact that being weird in a traditionally conservative culture actually means risking something — you've got a perfect recipe for top shelf indie-rock.

http://tinyurl.com/ybl8oun