Follow Me

I was thinking back and I realized that this is not the first time I have posted material of "Castle Park" for audience preview, in fact this will be the third. But this time I'm going to really push to get everyone within email distance to check it out and invite them to comment.

If you've been reading from the beginning, then you probably get the gist of this experiment and can skip the next three paragraphs. If not . . . follow me . . . and try to keep up.

Castle Park is the special park I take my little guy to whenever I get the chance. It's great cause it's old and big and I can point him in the direction of the slides and sit back with my little notebook and scribble. So, a little more than a year ago I noticed that I had a handful of songs. A handful of songs that were not written from my perspective, but from his, which happened because while watching him play I found his thoughts far more interesting than my own. So, not only did I have some material that I was really proud of, I also had a thematic concept. Writing from another perspective is a fantastic way of avoiding the rut of my own emotional crap and experiencing someone else's. The challenge in this concept, however, is to shy away from schmaltz whenever I can, the world does not need another "Cats in the Cradle" let alone an entire album.

Because my previous album had been a five year epic fizzle, it occurred to me that the journey might be just as interesting (if not more) as the destination, so I started this blog to document the entire process from first scribble to major label release. (no, I am currently not signed to any major label, but a girl's gotta dream). It also occurred to me that building an audience through the blogosphere might sell a few more albums down the road. I am a capitalist after all.

And lastly, I wanted to do something to embrace the social networking zeitgeist, and wondered what would happen if I broke a much written about taboo. Which is to say, never show a piece of art before it is finished. If my friends and loved ones could follow the story, what if I took the solitude of song writing and made it interactive? What if I allowed everyone to listen to the songs in their infancy and comment and maybe influence the final production? Totally awful idea, right? Nevertheless, here we are. And here we begin . . .

**Spoiler Alert**
This next section is going to be a deconstruction of the song "Follow Me"
If you don't care about the nuts and bolts of song construction, skip to the end and just listen and post your thoughts.
If, like me, you can't get enough of the details, I'll try to make this worthy of your time.

"Follow Me" The Idea:

It's monday morning. (its probably an amalgam of many mondays, but true none the less.)

My wife has literally just locked the door behind her on her way to work and Calvin runs full force into my leg spilling my coffee on the much hated carpet.

"Look what you did." I say. But he beams as if to say "You know as well as I do that I couldn't care less."

"Can we go?"

I raise my eyebrow.

"Let's go, lets go! Follow me."

I refuse to move, eyebrow still raised.

"Say yes! Say yes! Let's go!"

"In a minute." I say.

"No, not in a minute. Let's go!"

"What do you say?"

"May I please take me to the park?"

"It's 'Will you please take me to the park'"

"Let's go!"

So after we change from our jammies, brush our teeth, and bundle up, I grab my notebook and off we go.

Calvin had a routine at the park. The minute I pulled him out of the car seat he would jump from my arms and race over to the kiddie swings. If they were occupied, he would stand as close as he could stand without getting smacked in the face by flying feet and ask me every few seconds if they were done yet. He could tell when his turn was about to come when the other parents would get closer to the dangerous pendulum and begin to yank their kid out of the chair. Within seconds of the occupied little butts leaving the plastic seat, Calvin would lunge for the swing and hold onto it, claiming his rightful throne.

My favorite part is that he would close his eyes and wait for me to throw him into the air only to land safely in the loving embrace of the kiddie swing. He wasn't much of a conversationalist in the early days. "Higher!" "Faster!" "No!, too high!" were his only directions and since it would be another forty-five minutes before he relinquished his spot, I would pop my earbuds into one ear and space out to a little "Fresh Air"

Eventually I could convince him to get out and run around. I would lift him from the swing invariably losing a shoe, and when I got him back on the ground he would point to his crotch and give me a sad face.

"Time for a change?" I would ask. He would nod his head once and then we would go back to the car, put a fresh diaper on his little body and then off to the slides. Sometimes, however, I would ask him if he needed a diaper change, which I could clearly see that he did, and he would look at me quizzically and blast off for the jungle gym.

He was a fast little fucker even then, so sometimes I caught him, sometimes not. Those times I would wait till he was at the bottom of the slide and whisk him back to the car before his little Keds hit the ground.

Once he is running around socializing with the rest of the kids, I could sit on the bench and begin writing/observing. Note: when they're that little, if you take your eyes off them for more than a few seconds, the next time you see them, they'll be making a B-Line for the street. So at best, I could only jot down a few words at a time which is why my earliest pages look like the scribblings of a crazy person.

It's this event, and events like it, that makes "Follow Me" the perfect first cut for the album. It sets the scene and is a little wink/nod to the pied piper.

"Follow Me" The Lyrics:

The story basically illustrates the impetus for each line but there are a few little lyrical tricks I used to make it flow.

You say 'in a minute', but I want half that time
You say 'now you did it' but you know what's yours is mine

Yes, I did rhyme 'mine' with 'time' (it's not an error if you meant to do it) and 'you know what's yours is mine' is just a nice way of saying 'I'm gonna trash your stuff, deal with it'

If you say yes, then I'll say go
It's lift me up before I know it

"it's lift me up before I know it" was a reference to the game where Calvin would close his eyes and wait for me to throw him on the swing. I pulled a little Porteresque move by rhyming "I'll say go . . . its" with "lift me up before I know it." Cole Porter is famous for the double word rhyme (wild again, beguiled again) and I use it whenever I can get away with it. In an era where lyricism is either a collection of cliches or stream of consciousness set to music, I love attempting to honor the masters of form, techniques and style.

Push me higher, faster, I can't breathe. Follow Me.

A direct reference to the swings, but I wanted to juxtapose two competing ideas. Push Me (i.e. I need you to set me in motion) Follow Me (i.e. but don't forget that I'm the leader).

You say its time for changing
but I just run and hide
no point in rearranging
till we're down this slide

One of the tragedies of modern lyrics is that either they're downright stupid, or so bogged down with vagaries and metaphor that they're unintelligible. And since the modern ear is tuned to the form, it's nearly impossible to write classically without it sounding hokey. My own rebel stance is to make literal lines sound like metaphoric ones. So 'time for changing' may appear to be about growth and development, but it's really referring to peeling off dirty diapers.

I know that demon time
is right above your shoulder
there's not a moment with which
we're not getting older
so may I please
no
will you please
follow me

Every parent who's ever raised their children wishes they could go back in time and relive all those great moments. I don't want to feel that way. I want to capture those moments so that I can spend my life both in the now, and anxious for what's next. This bridge is how I motivate myself to live in Calvin's now, and be a good dad, even when I'm too tired to be anything to anyone. It's what I imagine Calvin would say to get my ass off the couch. The ending reflects Calvin's learning to ask for things politely, getting the words wrong, and then correcting himself. A reference to when he won't need me for the little stuff any longer.

"Follow Me" The Music:

For Christmas, dad gave me a Martin Ukulele that belonged to my step-mom's father and had been collecting dust. He knows I have love collecting instruments and this little thing was no exception. However, before I got a chance to even tune it, it became Calvin's favorite thing in the world. Anytime I would take out my guitar, he would grab the instrument out of its case and play along with me.

At first it was just the most cutest thing ever. Yes it was . . . yes it was. We did however discover that a prized family heirloom is probably not the best toy for a two year old, and so we got him his own.

Once back in my hands, I learned to play some basic chords and came up with a jaunty little riff that sounded perfect for my new set of lyrics. I drove my wife crazy for a week polishing my skill on the mini-instrument and singing.

Knowing that I couldn't very well use the instrument for my live show, I tried to make the transfer on the six string, but it just didn't sound right. Then I scaled it to the 12 string and the song found its voice. The twelve string also allowed me to rewrite the bridge so that it skips down into a minor key and the melody line can reach my upper register. The song would go from jaunty to dark back to jaunty. Since the most successful songwriters have been songwriting teams, writing different sections of songs at different times with different instruments allows me to treat myself as my own writing partner.

The music was born, shelved, reborn, shelved and then finally I agreed with myself that it was right.

"Follow Me" The First Recording:

So the recording you're about to hear was done in Dad's basement. First I threw in a basic drum track and then recorded a scratch track of the twelve string and my voice. I then agonized over a bass track, but discovered the simplicity of cutting and pasting on my new computer (an iMac by the way, screw you PC!). And then went to record the ukelele.

Of course, disaster struck. The ukelele track was in D maj. The 12string and bass was in E maj, a whole friggin step down.

For those of you who might suggest down tuning the ukelele, forget about it. Tried it, doesn't work.

But I wanted the damn Ukelele, so by the magic of Garageband (again, screw you PC!) I deleted the scratch 12 string track, and pushed a few buttons to make the bass track go up a couple notches. Didn't sound fresh and live, but it's the bass we're talking about. And I didn't have all day.

After a few takes with the Ukelele, and Dad's insistence that I tune the darn thing, I had a good enough pass.

Then since the 12 string was out of the question, I reenlisted the help of my trusty six string. Pan each instrument to opposite sides and make way for the vocal track.

Now here's where it got a little hairy.

I have been singing this song live for over a year now.

In E Major.

Unfortunately, the bridge that pushes my upper register in E major, is almost, but not quite, out of reach in D major. However, as my old man told me, if you can touch it, you can catch it.

So I went balls out. And learned a valuable lesson in vocal warm-ups. Which is . . to do them.

I didn't quite make it, as you will hear, and I cheated down a bit, as you will also hear. But I was trying to record eight songs in two days, and nit picking was not on my agenda.

After listening to the first pass, I realized that when the bridge comes, the butchered high notes sounded more like a blunt instrument that came out of nowhere, so to give them a little heft I pulled out my electric and twanged a thrashy D minor chord for punctuation. Not exactly a perfect solution, but as I said, time was of the essence.

A little EQ magic to polish it up, the end.

So there you have it. Start to finish.

Please follow this link to my myspace and listen to the song. If you have head phones available I suggest using them because computer speakers are usually awful. Also on this sight should be a YouTube video of the same song performed live at Streets of London in West Sacramento, in E Major.

www.myspace.com/joshmacrae

And please comment in some fashion. Again this is an interactive sport, and although I am a fragile artist, I heal quickly.

Minor Retraction

Got some great responses to my last blog.

But it made me realize that I may have been a little overdramatic.

A little too Tennessee Williams and not enough Neil Simon.

What I meant to say was that the scratch demo I recorded sounded far different from my original intent.

I didn't say it was bad, or that I should check myself into the Ford Clinic, but I wasn't prepared for how different.

It was like pouring myself a bowl of stew, and ending up with a mouthful of Pop Rocks.

I like Pop Rocks, but they just don't quite hit the spot on a lazy hazy sunday afternoon.

And that's what I meant by paradigm shift. To fall in love with what I've got rather than what I've dreamed and go forward. Like a husband falling in love with his wife rather than his secretary.

Sure the secretary might seem like a lot more fun, but she is probably a cat lover, and nobody spends that much time at the nail salon unless they have deep emotional needs.

With that said, it also reminded me that I haven't been fully open during this whole process.

My original intent was to pull a total Castanza. (ie "Hi, my name is George, I'm fat, I'm bald, I have no job and I live with my parents.")

Do everything a song writer is not supposed to do.

First I was going to use my son as my only inspiration: Too hokey. Too sentimental. Too Kermit the Frog for a Leonard Cohen career.

Second, I was gonna write about the whole process in blog form from first chord to iTunes release. Too unreliable. Too close to thousands of writer's block blogs. Too much like a vomit pail or a bed pan.

And lastly, I was going to invite the universe to listen to the songs in their infancy, weigh in, make suggestions, tell me how much they hate the ones I love, and love the ones I hate.

I chickened out on this last part.

Sure there were technical glitches, time issues, etc etc, but really, it's a very stupid idea.

Criticism can be such a baby killer.

But that was the most dangerous part of all.

That was the scariest part. (or dumbest, whichever you prefer)

And why do it at all?

Doesn't the taboo exist for a reason?

Yes, and for very good reasons, but it's an interactive social medium I'm experimenting with and it's something I could never do if I was already a commercial artist. I'm breaking with taboo, just to break something, and it feels good.

Hell, if I'm gonna stand up naked in front of everyone I know, I might as well have the balls to keep the lights on.

Get it?

Balls?

Anyhoo,

Starting this week I'm going to invite all of you to take your first listen to each of the new songs.

Every friday, I will upload a tune onto myspace. I will send out an invite via facebook to come take a listen, and comment if you feel the need. The song will only last until the next one comes along and will not be available for free download.

Note: each song will of course already have been registered with the copy write office (me stupid, but not that stupid.) Because each song will have already been registered, I will not be taking into account any lyrical or melodic suggestions.

Too fast?

Too Slow?

Kill it!

Keep it!

More Cowbell!

Whatever the response, I'm determined enough to take it, and fragile enough let it hurt.

Watch for the invitation.

Love,

Josh