“The 77 writers from all over North America who voted in the 10th annual Country Music Critics Poll named [Brad] Paisley Artist of the Year and Male Vocalist of the Year and cited his latest release, American Saturday Night, as the year’s second best album.” – Geoffrey Himes in Nashville Scene.

Well, dang. I guess that justifies learning another Paisley song. I considered learning “Welcome to the Future,” which reached #2 on Billboard’s Country Songs chart^[1], a while back, but didn’t want to over-Paisley this blog. But it’s been a while now, and I think the song deserves its attention. Written by Brad and consistent hit-writer Chris DuBois^[2], the song takes a macroscopic look at the way technology, globalism and race-relations have evolved over the past 50 years. Particularly worth noting is the third verse, which paints racism’s ugly picture with the image of a cross burning in a (presumably black) kid’s front yard for asking out a (presumably white) girl. I think this is interesting because it’s on the country airwaves not only condemning overt racism, but also condemning a quieter symptom of lingering racism: disapproving of interracial couples.

For all of its merits, there are still a couple things that bug me about this song. Specifically, there are two lines. The first is maybe just a personal dislike of calling things “a revolution” due to overuse of the term, so Every day’s a revolution bugs me. But then if I think of the other, more mundane meaning (which I don’t think was really intended as its mundanity runs opposite of the song’s theme), I kind of like it, because it’s true: the earth makes one revolution on its axis every day. The second thing that bugs me is that Martin Luther King Jr. is referred to as Martin Luther. This makes me nuts because those are two distinct historical figures, but since the context clears up who’s who, I guess it’s okay. And I apologize if those pseudo-critiques brought you too far into my world of hearing things literally.

Musically, this song was crafted to showcase Paisley’s guitar-slinging between just about every line, and as a result, the verse structure is surprisingly sparse by contemporary country hit standards. It was pretty hard to get the phrasing right when learning this one. And the “Hey”s in the chorus and bridge overlap, so I had to do this one as a multi-track. Instead of filling the whole thing out with bass and fake drums, though, I kept it to acoustic guitar, a lead and some back-up vocals (on the “Hey”s) and then a synth, to bring in one of Frank Rogers’ notable production choices the Paisley version. I really like the electro-sounding synth in the original recording as a nod to the concept of “the future.”

It’s been a while since my last post, but I finally found some time now that I’ve recovered from the holiday mania, and found some motivating inspiration in the new Lady Antebellum single, “American Honey.” One the whole, I’d rate the song at about a 7 out of 10, but if I could, I’d give the chorus melody a 12.

I was driving to lunch one day last week, and after hearing it on the radio, was crushed that I couldn’t just hear it again. This is one of the few songs that I’ve heard recently that has actually got me to go buy the song from iTunes for a whopping $1.29. The concept and verses seem a little lacking on first listen; in a way they sound like a rehash of Tom Petty’s “Free Falling” (and a million other songs) in that they’re describing a good American girl. But in the third verse the song takes a reflective twist, revealing that the singer is that girl, later in life, which is a redeeming payoff for the song. However, if the chorus hadn’t been so perfect, I would probably have changed the station before ever getting to the story’s payoff at all.

Again in the chorus, it’s not even the lyrics that I love, it’s the melody. Jason Blume makes a case that it’s not the lyrics that make a hit, it’s the melody. And he’s right. Of course the lyrics have to be great, too, but without the melody, no one would buy the record. Honestly, the title and hook lyric “American Honey” kind of irks me, to be perfectly honest, but it’s catchy. And it’s smashed into your head at the end of not only every chorus, but also every verse, so you’ll never forget it, and won’t have any trouble finding the song on iTunes.

According to iTunes, “American Honey” was written by Cary Barlowe, Hillary Lindsey and Shane Stevens. I think they might have listened to a lot of Huey Lewis when writing this one… listen for it in the chorus. Whatever they did, it worked.

I made another multi-track recording of this, mostly because I started with a midi piano track so I could transpose easily and find the right key for me to sing in, with a drum track to make it easier to stay in time. And then I added the harmonies, so I figured I should finish it out with bass and guitar. It’s not perfect, of course, but I got tired of working on it, so here you go, even if I am a bit flat in a couple places, and even if it’s weird for a male to be singing this song.

I heard Rosanne Cash’s “Seven Year Ache” on the radio the other day, and it killed me how good it was. Rosanne wrote the song, and Rodney Crowell produced it^[1] (who I hope to meet at the 2010 Songwriter’s Symposium in Austin next month). It’s just a phenomenal song that holds up just as well today as it did when it when it hit #1 on the country charts in 1981. Right off the bat it subtly and gently beats you over the head with a killer melody coming out of the warmest 80’s synth you’ve ever heard (are you responsible for this, Rodney? If so, NICE). Right out of that, the verse comes in, and Rosanne nails the colorful and yet somehow vague lyrics with such swagger that you’ve floated into the heart-wrenching chorus before even knowing it. One of the things I think is so great about this song, other than the melody and the performance, is that you know exactly what the song is about from the title, but the verses dance all around “You #$%* cheated on me, you $%#*!” without spelling things out so specifically. Instead, broad strokes of scenes and situations are allowed to float around in your brain, allowing the listener to patch the story together.

When I started off working on this one, I was going to sing it myself (like I normally do), so I transposed it down (or up) to E from C, because that’s where my voice was comfortable. But then my wife, Dixie, volunteered, so we tried it out. The vocal is at the very top of her range, but she pulled it off. The quality of her voice is way different than Rosanne’s take, of course, and due to the key it seems a little high for the song, but I’m proud of her for knocking it out.  It was fun to play the role of producer for someone else, too. I played on the midi piano a LOT on this one, from the synths to the rhythm piano to the drum sequencing, and I feel like I’m understanding it better than ever. Inverting chords and playing in different keys and such. Then I tracked bass, guitar and vocals and a little lead-ish guitar to fill in for where the steel solo was in the original.

Mixing is still a challenge for me. I don’t have monitors or even a pair of decent headphones, so this was done mostly through crappy headphones and some Dell computer speakers. Atrocious, I know, but it’s what I have for now. I did try to work with this Redline Monitor plug-in that I found to try to compensate for doing headphone mixes, and going back and forth between using that and not using it helped a bit, I think, but it’s still muddy and too bright in places, among other issues. Overall, I’m happy with how this study turned out, though.

All hazy with tryptophan from Thanksgiving dinner, I got the notion to make a holiday EP, so I spent some of my break in my home office/mini-studio tinkering in GarageBand. As building entire tracks takes a long time, I’m now thinking that a whole EP before Christmas might be a little ambitious, but maybe I can do it for next year. I did manage to complete something that resembles a Christmas song, though.

“Silver Bells” was written by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans, and was unique in 1950 as it depicted Christmas in an urban environment^[1]. Maybe this is something I should have taken into consideration in my production of the song, but I overlooked it at the time. The song’s structure is pretty simple: verse-chorus-verse-chorus-chorus. The hook is at the beginning of the chorus and is repeated in an echo, which helps to get it stuck in your head. And the happy-go-lucky—dare I say jolly?—canter of the verse seems perfectly suited to the Christmas theme.

I wanted to give the song a little bit more of a honky-tonk feel, so I added some flangey guitar over the traditional melody played by the piano, and a record static track for a little throwback feel. I also added the requisite sleigh bells and actually programmed the drums through my midi keyboard. This song could definitely use some more work, but I feel it’s pretty successful as a home production study.

It’s been a little while since my last post, but don’t give up on me—I’ve just been really busy. The Georgian Company played Austin’s 1st Oktoberfest last Saturday, which was a lot of fun and I think we sounded pretty good, too. Afterwards (it was a 9pm show) we went over to Ginny’s Little Longhorn to unwind a little and danced to Roger Wallace and his band, who played the hell out of some country classics. I got to meet Jim Stringer and Lisa Pankratz, who played pedal steel and drums, respectively, and are institutions in the Austin country scene.

Anyway, the point is that I’m sorry it’s been a while since my last post. In case of future irregularity in my postings, you might want to subscribe—that way you’ll never miss a one!

My wife suggested I learn the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s “Fishin’ in the Dark,” and as soon as I heard it and remembered it, I knew it had to be next. I couldn’t get it out of my head for days. It’s such a fun song, and the NGDB’s harmonies are so sweet. The verses and choruses are both independently solid, with the production of the verses being more sparse and a little more rhythmically dynamic and the choruses being big and full but with a very pronounced and straight duple meter. And then the final couple of choruses introduce a hint of a round, bringing the more complex rhythm into the mix at the finale. Also worth noting are the hard stops right before the choruses, which really add some nice punctuation. The song’s production really puts a nice polish on the standard ABABB format.

In addition to the infectious melody, the song writers Jim Photoglo (yes, Photoglo) and Wendy Waldman^[1] did a great job topically, as well. The lyrics clearly are about more than just goin’ fishin’, but they’re strung in such a way that you’d want to go fishin’, too, even if there wasn’t romance involved. They just really capture the moment when summer is right around the corner, and being outside at night feels awesome. And it makes you want your special someone close by.

This time around I made a multi-track recording since I really wanted to try to get some of the harmonies incorporated. And I had an extra banjo lying around the house, too. It’s a little loosey-goosey, and it’s not exactly hi-fi as I recorded it through the mic on my old iSight webcam, but I think it turned out pretty well, regardless.