I realized I forgot to write updates ont he last 2 albums! Jeez, Way to be on top of it, dude.

So this new album… is good. Hold on let me hit play while i write whatever comes to mind.

so where was i…. oh, so I wasn’t completely sick of it when checking the final mixes/mastering in the car 3 days ago. I’ve listened to it 3 times since then. Yeah there stuff I still want to fix but I need to move on. I have nearly 5 years of songs to finish!

I checked the file dates on the songs and they were all started in summer of 2018! See, I get new song ideas nearly daily. It’s so easy for me to write the chords and tempo for a song and basic vocal melodys. often lyrics too. Starting a new song is so much easier than finishing one. Which is why I am 4 and half years behind on my song backlog. I spend most of my music making time trying to make this stuff sound good. My process is usually this when opening and old session:

Listen back and wait for the first thing to trigger a negative feeling. Then fix it. It’s often a bad mix issue like you can’t hear the kick drum or the snare sound was awful or I played something really badly or the lyrics are too simple, obvious. Sometimes I’ll open up a song and it’s all there. Here is where I would segue into talking about “Lawyer, guns and crypto” but let’s just go in order.

Its so sad: I think this one might be older than 2018. I recall playing this over and over again on guitar when putting my daughter to bed each night and trying different ideas. At one point I realized my vocal line was a complete ripoff of another song. It was nigh impossible to find something else that worked. When I finally popped this open in november of 2022.. (I think that’s when I said, “NO NEW SONGS! FINISH THE NEXT ALBUM!” ?) I was able to approach with fresh ears. Well, that was after listening to the 6 different versions I made of it. The really slow sad one was pretty cool but the least finished and I honestly didn’t feel like I have the experience to make that one sound like a “song” rather than some boring collection of sounds. So anyway where was I. I dunno. I have ADHD (officially diagnosed thank you very much). I just checked my winter 2022/2023 folder and It looks like I have 6 songs I started when I declared I wasn’t going to make anymore until I finished this album. I nodded to that original vocal melody that I accidentally stole with one line of lyrics on this song. I also added a capo at some point because playing this in C felt too obivous (is F with a high E, C, G they key f C?)

I stay Ho ho: I think this started with me chopping up my nephew saying somthing into the mic. There was a track of him singing chopped up n stuff. I also had my lady do it too. they’re all layered and edited on top of each other. There’s a quote from a movie in the lyrics. Probably easy to spot for many of you.

Hold me im home: I found 2 versions of this. And just the other day i was playing these chords and started a new song before it hit me that i might have used them before. The other version was similar it just didnt have the dream crystals on it and the lyrics were weak.

Still cant chake that feleing: i think my daughter helped me write the melody for this one because I found a track with her freestyling notes and words. I asked her to come sing on it for real but she refused because “i’m not a music person” Oh really? We litterally play “alexa” where she asks for a made up song title and then freestyles a whole new song on the spot nearly everytime we’re in the car. I love the dembow sorta beat in this one.

let me alone: man i love that dreamy sound on top. That’s an ebow and a slide and some pedals and a guitar of course. I liked the old timey way of say “leave me a lone” I think fred norris of the howard stern had a drop from an old marlon brando movie where he would say it like this.

Lawyers guns and money: this was my favorite song but Keith told me I shouldnt start with it. I just love the narrative about trust fund crypto bros going to columbia and ripping off prostitutes not realzing they’re now in the targets of the cartel. Daddy is a senator and needs to send the aformentioned lawyers guns and crypto to save these little shitheals. And yes I am referencing the warren zevon song here. Felt like its a modern update to the idea i think his song is about. I dunno. ive deliberately avoided the song to not be influenced. i guess now that its done I can se how they compare

I pooped on your drums: I have no memory of making this but when I opened the session there was a recording of me telling different kids to say this into a mic. I doubt it was my idea at first. Whenever kids come over they always want to make music. This was originally a trap beat until I heard some bmore/jersey club and thought “oh this would be way better for that song”. It took maybe an hour or 2 to whip this into shape.

Ok, so: a crime song. i can write lyrics about crime and corruption so easily sometimes. I just start seeing the movie in my head and write what comes out. Making the words rhyme however is so much harder. the lyrics were hard to tell even soloing the vocal tracks. They’re my best guess for my mumbly mouth and what it says. Looks like I just freestyled this one right off the dome as there were no edits at all and nothing was written in the lyrics.txt file in the folder. Other than doubling the solo and giving it a better mix this one was pretty much done. oh and i added the end lyrics during this latest round of finishing

keith, no 1: kieth is my unoficial producer. i send him the songs (not soon enough) to get feedback. i really should do it earlier in the process as he has good ears and great ideas. when he told me he was going to be a dad i thought “dude, you’re not gonna be ready for this” and tried to put it in a song that used chords from a song he wrote. which i think was called “gay racists” or something? I dont even remember just that that title is somehow linked to a song idea he sent me. Maybe that his title? Im just guessing. As I am listening back to the song as I type I hear how this is kind of U2 joshua tree era thing. a lot of my references just come out and I dont cacth them until much later. And yeah keith said I could use his 4 chords on the first section.

Look whos trying: my friend meets sent me a song he was working on and I whipped up the front part of this for him to sing on. We never finished it. When i went back this winter to finish thse songs I found it i tried to see if I could write something new to it and it worked! so its his chords for the first half. i recorded and played everything. He gave me permission to use it. His melody and lyrics are different and likely better. IIRC his first line was “drinking, stinking and never thinking” or somehing like that. The end is all me. Thanks for the permish, meets!

I shoulda kept more notes because I think i had help on one of these from someone else. Probably my lady since I love her voice and ideas. She’s always giving me better lyric ideas and melody tweaks.

oh now i remember. Will helped me using AI to generate the characters on the cover. Everything else was me except the dudes will helped with. He and Jaime provided feedback on the design. Thanks dudes!

The title is a quoe aunt em says in the wizard of oz. we were watching it the other night (spolier: its kind of creepy) when she yells "quit yer jabber wapping and get back to work!". I immediately grabbed my note book and wrote it down hoping to gather more good words and quotes but we didnt finish it because it got way to scary for the kid.