2006-11-18

The 53 Best Moon Is No More Songs - Popularity - 5

5. Popularity

Two songs in two days. What a treat!

Popularity is the highest rated (and really the only) song from the Schoolyard EP.

This was a rare song where I played a part in the musical development of the song. My part? Basically, I told Joshua to create a Pedro the Lion riff. He nailed it while maintaining his originality. It's more of a long, lumbering riff than was typical of earlier Moon Is No More songs. The length of the riff allowed for the words to wander a bit more than normal, instead of having to be crammed in tight.

As with all of the post-trilogy songs, I spent a little more time thinking about lyrical structure. To me, the words flow better, the rhymes make more sense, and there's a nice sense of inventiveness. Of note is the tone of the song. There's something happy and dark going on at the same time. It creates a beautiful balance and makes this quite different from some of our other songs.

Popularity never gets old.

2006-11-17

The 53 Best Moon Is No More Songs - Come and Gone - 6

6. Come and Gone

I know it's been a long time since I last checked in. Things have been pretty busy with travel and other things. I'm posting this from the Refresh 06 conference in Orlando, FL.

We finally come to the first song that Joshua and I wrote together, Come and Gone. I know this story has been told before (and probably better), but anyway... I believe it was the summer of 1999. Joshua was really starting to dabble with creating and recording songs. I was staying with him for the summer, spending most of my days alone as he went off to work. I must have been running my mouth about something, saying that I could write a song in short order. Joshua made the challenge and I took him up on it.

The next day he went off to work and I went off to write. By the time he got home I had Come and Gone. He whipped together some guitar chords for it in short order and wham! Instant song.

And somehow it has stood the test of time and remains one of my favorites. It is 90 seconds of bliss. The combo of our dueling (not dualing) vocals makes up for my lack of ability. The lyrics manage to be interesting as a love song by taking a fresh look at things and presenting some different angles.

As a matter of chance, it just happened to fit perfectly into the Jeffrey L. Allen concept. It conveys this sense of on-again/off-again struggling relationship perfectly. In fact, we didn't do a thing to it, lyrically or musically to get it to fit. The final recording that we had made of this remains one of my favorite polished recordings we've done.

2006-11-04

Wildlifeless Final Shot

At long last, we shot the final shot of Wildlifeless tonight. A simple object spinning in the air. It seems so simple, but it's held us up, if only mentally, for quite some time. By this time next week, we should have a locked picture.