By Chris Moore:
Hello and welcome to yet another all-new edition of everyone’s favorite acoustic cover song music blog! Today, I’m bringing you a song taken from Jim’s list of songs to record. He’s noticed that I’ve been having a hard time recently finding songs from new artists to cover — most of the songs I want (and I have quite the list) are either from artists I’ve recently covered or have difficult singing parts that I need more practice with. So, he suggested I do Gordon Lightfoot’s “If You Could Read My Mind.” I have always loved this song, and my passion for it was renewed when I picked up a copy of Gene Clark’s album Firebyrd. The album includes a cover song version of this song that I love every bit as much as the original. So, in a way, this is the perfect track to choose for a Laptop Session — a song by a new artist that was once covered by an artist whose material we have often covered on this video blog. If that made sense to you, then you deserve extra points!…
Regular fans of the Sessions may notice that I’m standing up tonight instead of sitting, as I have been for many of my recent video blog entries. Well, the reason is simple — even though this is not an upbeat song, I felt that I just wasn’t doing well with it while sitting. I’m kind of like Robert Redford’s character in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in that way. In the film, Sundance (played by Redford) is asked to shoot a target in order to prove how good a shot he is. The man insists that he not draw from his holster; rather, he should simply take aim and shoot. He does so and misses. The man grins disappointedly and starts to walk away. Then, Sundance puts the gun back in his holster, draws, and rapidly shoots the rather small target repeatedly.
When the man looks at him, awe-struck, Sundance’s response is something like, “I’m better when I’m moving.”
While recording acoustic cover songs is obviously not anything like firing a weapon, I do often think about this comparison when I’m playing. When I’m on my feet, I tend to take what I’m playing more seriously and I truly feel more comfortable than if I were to sit and play.
Well, now that you have more information about my style of playing acoustic guitar music than you could ever have hoped for or desired to know, I’ll leave you with the actual session. I kind of wore myself down on this one, playing so many takes that, although it is technically solid, I feel that it lost some of the urgency of the earlier takes. Of course, it didn’t help that my computer lost battery power and shut down in the middle of my most perfect take. If only it had held out for two more minutes, I would have been done a half hour earlier than I was!
Okay, without further ado, here’s my version of Gordon Lightfoot’s “If You Could Read My Mind.” Don’t forget to hurry back tomorrow for an all-new and excellent session from Jeff!
See you next session!