I’ve been chipping away at digitizing my song idea tapes. A daunting task, considering I’ve got damn near a hundred of ‘em. I’m enjoying it, though, as I get to relive the moments of creative epiphany (and sometimes pure insanity) I’ve captured on tape over the years. It would take at least ten years—with no day job—to go back and develop all the song ideas into full-fledged, high-quality recordings. I realize this will never happen. I’m fine with it, though, because 1) Many of the ideas suck; 2) Some of them are too precious to change at all; and 3) I’m constantly coming up with NEW ideas that demand time and attention, so I can only return to the stuff on the old tapes that I find particularly compelling.
This weekend I converted Song idea tape #63 to mp3 files. This 90 minute tape is from the summer of 2006, and documents 48 ideas, including such future classics as Cool riff, Rockin’ riff, Shower song, Legs on a snake, Old timey acoustic riff, Whistle beatbox, and High and longin’.
I also found this short and sweet cover of the Radiohead B-side, You never wash up after yourself, for your listening pleasure:
I was walking to the mailbox yesterday evening, lost in a daydream I’d been wandering through for hours. I looked up at the sky and daydreamed about how cool it would be if I looked up at the sky and had a true moment of awakening, a flash of clarity about my place in the universe. I reached into the mailbox and pulled out a coupon flier and a bill for my cell phone. I walked by the recycling bins, dropped off the coupon flier, and shuffled back to my apartment.