The Year of Twelve Songs, Pt 2
The Perfect Stranger
THE GOAL: A new music video every month in 2024.
THE EASY PART: I’ve already written the songs.
THE HARD PART: Everything else.
I’m a sixty-something, mostly self-taught, amateur wannabe with some songs I want to share—and eventually leave behind.
These songs tell the stories of my life, sometimes quite literally, sometimes less so. But I hope others can find something of their own story in there. I think that’s why we do art of any kind—to connect, right?
The Second Song
This month’s song is sort of a sad homage to the classic one night stand. What kids today might call a hookup. Or maybe that term is already out of date, I don’t keep up. Anyway, I originally wrote this song back in the 1980s, probably sitting at a bar nursing a hangover. I’ve even done a video of it before. But I always thought it needed a bridge, and I finally got around to writing one last year, and I think it helps crystalize the intent of the lyric. So, here’s a new recording, including the new bridge.
The structure is fairly simple and classic: verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, verse, chorus. The story told in the verses even follows something like three-act structure.
Musically, it’s an old-school, three-chord country song in the key of C. Just C-F-G with a few frills here and there. I’m arpeggiating the main guitar chords as a counter melody that overlaps and intertwines with the vocal melody.
Performance & Production
(if you’re into the details)
Once again, it’s just me on vocals and instrumentation.
My big learning goal for this production was to incorporate GarageBand’s digital drummer. It’s an unwieldy beast, I’ll say. And like a lot of this stuff, I am on the steep part of the learning curve.
The bass guitar part was also digitally created, using a GarageBand preset and the Musical Typing feature. I did better with that this time, but I’d like to find a better solution going forward. I might be shopping for a bass guitar. We’ll see.
The main guitar part was recorded with a Taylor T5z hybrid guitar, plugged in directly to the Scarlett audio interface. It was digitally duplicated, and one track drenched in boozy tremolo, the other has a bit of distortion. The vocal was recorded separately with the PreSonus M7 microphone, using the MouKey reflection shield. The lead guitar was also recorded on the T5z direct to the Scarlett, with a “Cool Jazz Combo” effect laid on.
The slide show is a series of shots I found online—mostly from pexels.com—that seemed to evoke the right mood and correspond to the story somewhat. I put it together in iMovie with the audio file from GarageBand. This felt more appropriate for the song than a video of me.
Overall, this song turned into quite an experiment, and thus an adventure. There are aspects I’m quite satisfied with and some I would change with more time. But that’s the beauty of setting a deadline, right? I learned that in 40 years of the newspaper and magazine business. You do the best you can, fuss over it until the last minute if need be. But make the deadline. Anyway, I learned a lot from the process. And that’s the real point.
Gear & Software
(If you’re a fellow nerd)
Guitar: Taylor T5z 2016
Digital bass: GarageBand Sounds Library/Upright Jazz Bass, operated via Apple’s Musical Typing
Digital drums: GarageBand Drummer
Hardware: MacBook Air 2020, with AOC 27-inch auxiliary monitor.
Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 Audio Interface
Sennheiser HD 280 Pro Headphones
PreSonus E5 Studio Monitors
PreSonus M7 Cardioid Condenser Microphone
Great song, Roy : ) A joyous homage to a rocking one night stand. Loved every one of those I had back in the day.
Lovely. Shades of Kristofferson and early John Prine