Cover

I'm chuffed with my new song. I keep going back on to MySpace to listen to it. I think it's very me.

I've bought myself a rhyming dictionary as I noticed when I was writing that song that I was getting stuck when thinking of rhyming words. I'm going to try using the rhyming dictionary next time to see if it helps.

But now I'm thinking about cover songs. I've wanted to cover a song for a while. I like it when a musician has just one cover song that they do really well. I heard my old band The Great Indoors again the other week and they did a version of The Rainbow Connection by Kermit the Frog. It was beautiful! I'd always thought that was a great song and Anjuli really did it justice. I didn't realise it has already been covered by quite a few people though. I think that's the main problem... finding a song that no-one else has covered. Plus you have to really like the song and have some sort of connection with it.

Anyway, I've been listening to Michael Hurley songs and I think they are ripe for the covering. I love The Tea Song as I think it's amazing to write a seven minute song about a cup of tea. My favourite line is "I don't care if she's left me/Just as long as the cupboard's full of tea". Amazing in it's simplicity. But, you know... that is what you do when someone leaves you or when you go through some big change in your life, drink endless cups of tea. But unfortunately I can't do those long notes and yodeling that he does in that song.

On the same album is Fat Mama, another beautiful song, which seems to have the same chords as a little chord sequence I've been playing with lately. So it'll either be that or The Werewolf Song - but Cat Power's done a version of that damn it!

Finally

I've finally written another song. It's only taken me six months. Listen to it on MySpace. It's called All These Things.

It's about my girlfriend. My girlfriend has moaned at me in the past for not having written a song about her. I said that my songs were all really miserable so she should take it as a compliment that I haven't written a song about her.

Anyway, I have finally written a song about her and hopefully it's not too miserable. She's a bit like a magpie so I wrote about that:

All These Things

Turning up stones to find her fare
Branches will bough in the air
Sparkles of gold
In all that she holds
Making a nest out of bright-coloured ribbon

Buttons and bones make stately homes
Red cotton reels catch her eye
Leaves that turn brown
Come fluttering down when she's
Making a nest out of bright-coloured ribbon
Making a nest out of bright-coloured ribbon

Black and white need colour
Take flight over
All these things

Porcelain trinkets make her sing
Carries them up on her wing
Odd-shaped and old
Bring treasure untold
Making a nest out of bright-coloured ribbon
Making a nest out of bright-coloured ribbon

Black and white need colour
Take flight over
All these things
All these things
All these things

Strangers

Did another open mic at the Brunswick last night. Good fun! I was really not sure if I wanted to sing my own songs as I felt tired and unsociable and didn't really want a room full of strangers staring at me. I was just going to play guitar with Annie instead. But there were a few other acts that were about the same standard as me so I thought I would give it a go and I enjoyed it in the end. The whole worrying-about-a-room full-of-strangers-staring-at-me kind of went away as soon as I got on stage because, with the lights shining right at you, you can't see anyone anyway.

Annie asked the compere if it was bad etiquette if I went on again to play guitar with her and apparently it wasn't, so I did. That was good fun too. After our second song I looked up and most of the audience had left! The few that remained asked for another song and we obliged (with 'Another Song' - Annie's favourite on-stage joke!).

Someone came up afterwards and complimented me on Grace is Just Her Middle Name, saying she noticed the change in tense. Nice! Glad that someone's listening.

Me and Annie are talking about getting a little songwriting group together with the idea of meeting up every couple of weeks and sharing songs that we've come up with. But now I've started my scriptwriting class and that's going to take up a lot of time. Hopefully I'll have a bit of time left for songwriting.