Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

songwriting

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In response to a non-perma-link post on ThePlan (come on, people, Perma Links are not that hard), i have always considered “i’ve got you under my skin” as an integral accompaniment to “under my skin,” and in the past the coda of latter song has been the first verse of the former. However, this is more of a random decision to lengthen a good version of the song rather than a planned medley, and i tend to avoid the add-on if i plan to use the song for a recording since i’d like it to stand on it’s own two legs. But, really, aren’t you sick of those same damned chords over and over by the time you get to the end of the normal version of the song? Hopefully all the fun stuff i have planned for it will alleviate the boredom that i certainly feel at playing those same chords over and over. Anyhow… um… ThePlan has this on-again off-again habit of being a running commentary on whatever i post, which is pretty amusing, so you should visit whenever you get bored with the real me. :p

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/01/1927031/

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Tonight, rather than blogging, i sat down and hammered out harmony vocals for “Never Say Goodbye” in midi (which involved me correctly writing it out as sheet music first, which is really freakin’ hard). They sound nice enough, but for them to get recorded i have to actually be able to sing them, which is a different problem entirely. I can sing well enough, but when i sing while listening to anything else my range tends to be restricted to notes matching the sounds around me. As such, almost all of my songs have melodies that are directly derived from their chord structure, and visa versa. To dub harmony vocals onto a song i have to hit all of the notes perfectly in regards to length and pitch. Then i have to go back and sing something totally different overtop of myself! I’ve never tried to do anything that provides the same sort of distracting sensation as attempting to vocalize something new while hearing myself sing something old. I have to disagree with what i already sang! Anyhow, i began working all that out tonight, and as you can see it’s not going to get any easier.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/01/1926813/

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In less than an hour i’ll be celebrating the one year anniversary of writing “Under My Skin.” Thinking about it makes me want to… cry? I almost hate when i crystallize a moment in time so perfectly into words and notes that sound good, so that i replay the moment every time i sing the song. Over time i’ve come to accept my slightly idealized account of what happened as the truth, when in reality it was only the truth of my perception. UMS is one of the lucky few songs i’ve written that have been liked both by me and my occasional audiences, and i’m grateful for having the opportunity to call it my own – even if it was a result of heartbreak. Even more important to me is that the song is accepted and adored by the person it’s about, although i still don’t think she truly understands what it (and she) means to me. This weekend i demoed the song in several configurations in the studio, and it will definitely be a prominent track on my next demo recording.

Anyhow, all of my creepy singer-songwriter issues aside, you can still hear my original recording of the song over at AMkitchen, as well as newer versions there and in the Trio archive. After a year it all still feels the same, even though it sounds a little different now.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/01/1900376/

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Rather than writing bunches of new songs, i seem to be writing bunches of little indy-ish snippets, none of which top two minutes in length. The first in this trend was “More Than That,” which appeared in the 12.3 Trio. Now there’s more… “Can’t Cure Love,” “(another) War,” “Impact,” “(this is what you) Pay For It,” “Spineless,” and more! I’m not sure if i’m just not putting in enough effort, or if all of these songs really want to be ineffectual little snippets. Maybe i’m just turning into the acoustic pop version of Guided By Voices… god knows i have the tape hiss down pat.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2000/12/1811158/

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So… this week there’ll be a Trio… i’m just not sure of what magnitude. I missed it two weeks ago because i was busy packing and cleaning, and i missed it last week because i was at home. But, aside from not being around to record it, i’ve sorta hit an impass with the songs themselves. You see, i’ve played every song that wanted to be played without interspersing enough filler, so now i feel as though i either need to write new songs, play filler, or repeat some old ones. And i really don’t want to do any of that. Out of my 100+ compositions, i think it’s fair to say that i wrote a decent 33%, and from that third of the songs there’s only a few left. That’s not to say that all of my other songs are crap, but they just aren’t as solid or well thought out as the others, partially because i never had enough time to develop them. So… there will be a concert this week… it’s just the content that’s up in the air.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2000/12/1810954/