I posted a song on FAWM today. Strictly speaking, it does not qualify. The song was started last February, left in limbo for a year, and resumed this year. I posted a demo of us playing it this morning at Wood Burning Cat practice. Below is the demo and the full lyrics. Tentatively, this song is titled "Radio Waves," though I may change that down the road.

Wood Burning Cat - New Song (final take) by notjason

If I had it my way
I would just work the whole damn day
Until I'm too tired to do anything but sleep
And when I would drop
free from the burden of my thoughts
I wouldn't have to think of how I'm wasting all my time

I now apprehend
that this is a means without an end
And I am as far behind as I have ever been
And some would suggest
that you should just do what you like best
But if they knew what that meant they'd probably disagree
Cause I hate the things I love and they hate me

I spent the last six months living aboard a satellite
Orbiting miles above the surface of the Earth
Broadcasting radio waves to a discreet antenna
On an Earthly robot that looks quite a bit like me
And I see everything it sees through a small black and white TV
And it does most the things that I ask it to do
But I can't grab it's robot jaws and issue one simple request
Please just stop filling me with fuel
Please just stop filling me with fuel

Potential lyrics for the bridge of an existing Wood Burning Cat song.

I've been the last six months living aboard a satelite

orbiting miles above the surface of the earth

broadcasting radio waves to a discrete antenna

on an earthly robot that looks quite a bit like me

and I see everything it sees through a small black and white TV

and it does most the things that I ask it to do

but I can't grab it's robot jaws and utter one simple command

please just stop filling me with fuel

Alright, it's morning and I feel slightly less hopeless. I can do this damnit. Still, expect not to hear from me until at least tomorrow. Snow storm and work and all that shit.

Last year, I didn't end up doing FAWM at all. I recorded a lot of little demos, some of which still seem to have potential, but none of which ever actually amounted to anything. Eventually I just admitted defeat and gave up entirely. Of course, I'm only a day into it this time, but it's hard not to feel like I'm heading down the same rout. The only thing I've done so far is a really horrible tossed off chord progression with a super predictable and repetitive melody over it. Why would I want to do anything with that?

How can I not suck at music? What is the key? I don't always suck at music. Do I?

And lyrics, don't even get me started on lyrics. It seems like the problem with lyrics is just symptomatic of a bigger issue with life in general. In order to really write lyrics, something has to put fire in you to do such. My life is pretty much the opposite of fiery. All the conflicts in my life have the volume turned down to a dull whisper. That isn't to say they don't exist, but it's inordinately hard for me to really give a shit about anything enough to write about it.

Another problem is that I'm too smart to like the bad lyrics I come up with. Even in my current batch of Wood Burning Cat songs, there are lyrics that make me cringe. I have some that don't even make sense. Why would I want to write lyrics that I don't think are smart?

That's the rant for now. Hopefully I'll get over myself and work on something else later, but I think today has been a bust.

As sometimes happens when I record an idea late at night, in the morning I hated it. Well, "hate" is a strong word, but I didn't think it represented anything tremendously worth hanging onto. Still, however, I persevered and tried to do something similar. This is also in B major, but has two additional chords. While this is a fairly standard chord progression, it's not one that I personally have made much use of. Basically, it's B, E, C#m, F#, or 1 4 2 5. Additionally, I tried to park myself on each chord for longer before the change. The melody is the simple "repeating one lead over and over and over and over again" approach.

20110201-0616 by notjason

An actual blues riff in B.

This year, my number one goal with FAWM is to write new songs to play with my band Wood Burning Cat. Therefor, it seems fitting that the songs I write be tailor-made to fit the band. History has shown me that adapting folk songs for use in a power pop band is not only exhuasting, but results in something that usually sounds more like a folk song than a power pop song. So what is it that I think my band most needs at this point? In my opinion, the answer is uptempo major key songs. That, for the time being, is what I'm working towards.

In recent years, I've found it very rewarding to stick to the basics in my songwriting, at least at the very core of the song. I've had a lot of success and a lot of fun writing on simple 2 and 3 chord blues style progressions. So far, this idea sticks to that philosophy. Essentially it's B major and E major. The two melodies are panned left and right. The left-hand melody is what I envision as a keyboard lead, and the right-hand melody is a potential vocal melody.

When I revisit this idea, I may consider staying on each chord twice as long and further developing the melodies.

20110201-0236am - B major by notjason

Welcome readers. It is now officially February 1st, which can only mean one thing: February Album Writing Month. "FAWM," as we call it, is a once a year challenge where songwriters attempt to write 14 songs in 28 days. I have never succeeded at accomplishing this goal, but every year I try. And though I fall short of 14 songs, I always come away with at least one gem that endures and proves useful.

The core idea of FAWM is that quantity necessarily heads some sort of quality. I actually agree with this. I think that many people fail to write good songs because they refuse to work through the bad ideas. I think that people get hung up on difficulties and give up too soon. FAWM forces you to get over those normal hindrances, by forcing you to adhere to a nearly unrealistic deadline. By the time you finish several songs, you find yourself well practiced in the craft of filtering ideas and piecing them together, and you create great songs with much less effort than previously required.

Having said that, a few years ago I decided that I no longer wanted to settle for mere quantity. I decided that a more important challenge for myself was to push my songwriting in the directions where it most needed it. Simply writing a lot of songs was easy, but writing a few good songs that truly excited me, that was hard. The key to this, I determined, was in allowing myself several drafts. Furthermore, being able to document my incremental successes seemed potentially very helpful. Thus was born the previous version of this blog, "neurotic musician". This is the exact same idea as that one, only I wanted a completely fresh start. With any luck, this will continue past February this time.

Good luck everyone!