By Jim Fusco:
I just got word that something HUGE might be happening next Monday, March 31st. I wouldn’t make any bets on it, but given the time limit, we may be able to make something happen.
I know this sounds very vague, but again, I don’t want to make any promises. The one thing I’ll say is this: the date has significance!
Updates will come as I get them…
By Jim Fusco:
Okay, tonight’s song goes out by request, as there’s been an outcry for songs from “Love You”, the Beach Boys album that’s lauded as one of Brian Wilson’s most personal efforts, especially after the “Pet Sounds” period. Next week’s Beach Boys song will be another from this album: “The Night Was So Young”.
This song, “Let Us Go On This Way”, is a rockin’ tune that starts off the album. Carl Wilson’s great vocals and crazy synthesizers are notable parts of the original.
This was a lot of fun to do acoustically, and I’ve always loved the message of this song. It’s unfortunate that the band really didn’t “go on that way” much longer after this album. Dennis died a few years later, and before that, they started becoming the “greatest hits band” they are today. At least Brian Wilson is still keeping the faith and making (great) new music now!
I hope you all enjoy this and I hope you’ll rate it!
By Jim Fusco:
Welcome to the Laptop Sessions’ Original Wednesday. I’m guessing some people will be new to the Laptop Sessions because of this original song video, and we welcome you aboard!
This song, a pun on the “Red, White, and Blue”, is my first and only “protest” type of song.
The song was written in early 2002 after 9/11 about the hypocritical actions of Americans automatically becoming “patriotic” as soon as a disaster hit. This original song is just me wondering why people weren’t just ALWAYS patriotic!
This song is still as relevant today, six years later, as it was when I wrote it. I even talk about Easter in the song (it was that time of year), and I thought this would be the perfect week to bust it out again.
Basically, I’m giving the point of view of an 18 year old kid (at the time) from Connecticut because all the hardship and fear seemed so distant from my everyday life at the time.
To say this song is still relevant today shows how stagnant the country’s been lately. We still are fighting a never-ending war on terror and the patriotism of the country is waning once again.
Oh, and the verse about California: it’s in reference to when they didn’t have the Red-Carpet festivities for a big award show that year. I didn’t think that was helping anyone. Letting the terrorists know we’re scared? That’ll really help…
“The Red, White, and Blues” is from my double-album set, “That’s All…” that I released in 2003. I say “double album” in a different way than you would normally think of it. For instance, the Beatles came out with a double album with their “White Album” (simply titled, “The Beatles”) in 1968. That album consisted of over 20 original songs and couldn’t fit on just one vinyl record. For “That’s All…”, it’s a bit different. You see, I had just gotten a guitar- my first real acoustic guitar, an Ibanez Artcore. I instantly wanted to play everything on the acoustic guitar and quickly went to playing folk songs. I even came up with a bunch of my own. I thought a blues song like “The Red, White, and Blues” would be a perfect way to start off an album of folk songs.
But, I also had a bunch of original songs that I’d written in my normal rock’n’roll style, too. So, I decided to record everything at once and split up the whole project into two original albums: “That’s All Folks”, which featured all of the folk songs I’d written, and “That’s All Jim” that featured all of my songwriting efforts in my normal style. I put both albums on one CD, but each album had it’s own cover. Plus, the combo-pack of both albums called “That’s All…” had it’s unique album cover!
I hope you all enjoy this original song music video. If you want to hear the original recorded version and buy the double-album online, you can go to my website: http://jimfusco.com/albums/thats_all.html
By Jim Fusco:
Welcome to your Sunday edition of the Laptop Sessions!
Today, I bring you a tune that I covered on my album “That’s All Folks” called “Great Day” by Paul McCartney. It closes out his 1997 album “Flaming Pie”, one of my all-time favorites. That album, “That’s All Folks”, came about because I had purchased my first good acoustic guitar. That guitar meant everything to me- it sounded great, played great, and made me feel like a real musician. I didn’t even really know how to play too well when I bought it. So, I learned how to play a bunch of songs I was listening to at the time. That taught me more chords, which turned me into a better player. And, at the time, I was going through a HUGE Paul McCartney phase. They had just released “Wingspan” with all of Wings’ greatest hits. I know those songs probably grate on people after all this time, but they were all new to me- and I fell for it pretty hard. We were also listening, as a family, to Paul’s albums from the 90s quite a bit. The first real song I learned how to play (and played it for my parents) was, of all things, “Hope of Deliverance” by Paul McCartney off of the “Off the Ground” album from the early 90s. I guess you could say that Paul McCartney’s songs really taught me how to play. And when it comes to rock musicians, you can’t get a much better tutor than him.
This is the perfect acoustic song and gives quite a vocal workout, which you wouldn’t expect in such a simple song. I decided to do this acoustic cover song on my nylon-string classical acoustic guitar, as it gave me the opportunity to be more expressive in my performance. This song is very soulful, which you wouldn’t really expect from the lyrics. I kind of dumbed-down the guitar picking riff throughout because that’s not really my thing. I’m a strummer and a soloist, but can’t do the flat-picking thing too well. Paul McCartney, the phenom that he is, is proficient at almost anything, musically. The man is one of the best bass players of all time, he can play the drums, sing (obviously), write songs, and play any guitar part you throw in front of him. Oh, and he’s written some of the most famous rock songs of all time on the piano, as well. That’s a pretty impressive life, for sure!
I hope you all enjoy today’s Session, as I’ll be back on Wednesday with a “political” original song- don’t miss it!