Tag Archives: laptop

“Forever Young” (Bob Dylan Cover)

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By Chris Moore:

Hello and welcome to my second to last Laptop Session of 2008!  For my selection tonight, I’ve gone back to the formidable catalog of Bob Dylan.  Specifically, I’ve chosen a song that I think everyone should hear — around this time of the year, especially.

“Forever Young” is a fairly simple and straightforward song, one about wishing someone health, happiness, self-confidence, and an overall high quality of life.  I think it’s really interesting that Dylan recorded two versions of this song.  Now, you may be wondering why this is out of the ordinary, as Dylan is well-known for recording multiple versions of the same song, often with various arrangements and different lyrics.  However, in this case, both versions (each very unique) were included on the same album, 1974’s Planet Waves…  Back to back!

I hope you enjoy my cover of this great song, and I hope you’ll accept it as a blessing extended from me to each one of you, each of you that has taken and continues to take the time to listen to my cover songs.  It’s been quite a year with some great videos, some mediocre videos, and a few that stretched the range of what I’m able to do.  And, at the end of this noble experiment we like to call “session-a-day,” I find myself being able to sing a song — this one, “Forever Young,” — that I wasn’t able to sing and play comfortably as recently as a year ago.

Before I leave you to watch the music video I’ve posted on YouTube for today, I’d like to thank Jim’s cousin Sarah for having us over tonight.  Jim, Becky, Sarah, and I went to see Jim Carrey in Yes Man (and it was excellent fun!), eat at Luigi’s (where I had delicious scallops over ziti), and even got to play Wii tennis, dodgeball, and volleyball.  Sarah and I were an unstoppable team, but Jim did beat me mercilessly in the gladiator event.  It was good to get out.

And, as a final note, I just finished reading Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower, which was a Christmas present from my sister Jaime.  It was an excellent book, and as I mentioned to her, I wish I had read it in high school, as I was trying to figure out some essential things about myself.  That was in large part what the novel was all about — learning to understand and be confident about yourself before you can properly fit other people into your life.  Now, I’m 25 pages into Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five and really enjoying it.  Vonnegut is great; his final novel, Timequake, really impressed me, and I have no doubts that I’ll be equally amazed with this one by the time I’ve finished reading it.

Okay, but this is enough for now.  You should go watch my video, and I’m going to go back to watching episodes from the eighth season of ER, one of my favorite shows of all time.  I forgot how much I cared about these characters — Greene, Carter, Lewis, and others.

Hurry on back, now, for Jeff’s video tomorrow.  Then, it’s one last time through the batting order before 2009!!

See you next and last (for 2008) session!

“Dead Skunk” (A Loudon Wainwright III Cover)

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By Chris Moore:

Hello and welcome to your weekend edition of the best video blog in the world!  And we’re humble, too!

Seriously, though, we’ve really been putting a lot of effort into this acoustic cover song music blog — practicing and recording acoustic rock covers, writing detailed and interesting blog posts and articles, adding photos to our posts, and so much more.  Next year, after the “session-a-day” project is completed, we have so many ideas for expansion that you’ll just have to check back regularly to experience them all.  I can’t say too much for now, but you’ll have to trust me that music fans and even fans of other things will not be disappointed!

And now, to be anything but serious, I bring you Loudon Wainwright III’s most famous song, “Dead Skunk.”  My father used to play this for me from a seventies acoustic rock tape that he had.  It was always a lot of fun, and I still remember not quite believing that “Dead Skunk” was a real song when he sang the chorus to me before I had heard the studio version.

I’ve heard that Wainwright is somewhat bitter about the fact that this song found so much success — and I can’t say I really blame him; it’s quite the legacy!  But this is not the only case of this; just think of the fact that Warren Zevon, with his amazing range of work, will probably only be remembered for “Werewolves of London.”  Still, success is success.

Okay, that’s it for now, but make sure to hurry back tomorrow (as Zevon would sing, “Hurry home early, hurry on home…”) — if you’ve made Laptop Sessions your home, then Jeff Copperthite won’t disappoint with his latest music video tomorrow…

See you next session!



“Run” (Snow Patrol Cover)

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By Chris Moore:

Greetings from the other side of the midnight chimes — this is your latest (and late) Laptop Session!  Tonight, I bring you a new band to the sessions… Snow Patrol.  Specifically, this is “Run,” the seventh track of their 2003 album Final Straw.  This album was first recommended to me by then-fellow Staples Copy Center employee John Fortin, after he heard the Chris, Jim, and Becky album Live in the Studio.  He said, based on our album, he thought I might enjoy the band.

At first, I liked the album, but I wasn’t crazy about it.  It became one of those albums you go back to every so often, and over time, I grew to like it more and more.  Recently, as I went back to both this album and their subsequent one, Eyes Open, I fell in love with the songs of Final Straw.  The next album is solid, but lacks the hooks and flairs — really, the strength of individual tracks that are great and stand on their own — of the 2003 release.

My sister has also become a fan of Snow Patrol, so I hope that she gets a chance to read this post and check out the video.  Jaime and I have fairly divergent tastes in music, but we have found much more overlap in the past few years — we can especially agree on the awesome-ness of Ben Folds and Elliott Smith!  We actually both had a similar reaction to the new Snow Patrol single, “Take Back the City.”  Specifically, we were hesitant about the new album based on the strength of this track.  I can’t speak for her, but I know that — for me — the song seemed a bit forced at first, as if they were trying to make a hit single that could climb the charts as well as their last big hit, “Chasing Cars,” did.  Really, though, what was most off-putting to me was what I initially interpreted as being a line — “God knows you’ve put your life into it tons.”  Tons?  Really?  Is this the poetry I’m rushing to the store to purchase?

Well, those of you who know me will check this off on the list of times that I misinterpret something due to an accent.  (Stories for another time…)  The line is really “God knows you’ve put your life into its hands.”  Lead singer Gary Lightbody’s Irish accent through me off.  And, while I’m in a confessional mode, can I also admit that one of the factors that has always prevented me from entirely liking the band was the way Lightbody sings?  Yes, it’s true… It took me until a few weeks ago to research and discover that they’re an Irish band.  How I didn’t figure that out before is beyond me!  But, now that I know, I’ve been going through a Snow Patrol renaissance of sorts.

Their 2008 release, A Hundred Million Suns, is — in my opinion — their best work since Final Straw.  I was hesitant to buy it at first, based on their 2006 album and the aforementioned single.  But, I’m really glad I did buy it.  The opening track “If There’s a Rocket Tie Me to It” is one of my favorite track ones in a long time.  Track two, “Crack the Shutters,” is one of my favorite songs on the album and would have been my choice for a single (To date, it has reached #9 on the iTunes alternative rock charts!).  Then, track three is the single.  Track four, “Lifeboats,” slows it down a bit and is another of my favorites.  And it goes on from there…

I found it really interesting to read that the band considered this to be a more upbeat and “cheerful” album than previous releases.  I didn’t really interpret it that way, but that could just be my current state of mind.  Regardless, I do agree with their statement that it is their best album to date.

Well, that’s enough ranting and rambling about Snow Patrol for one post!  In other news, I broke down and bought the first season of the Chappelle show, with hopes that Jim will want to watch some of the episodes.  So far, I’ve only watched the first episode, which includes not only my favorite sketch (the Clayton Bigsby, black white supremacist skit) but also the Pop Copy sketch that so wonderfully makes fun of my previous profession as a Staples Copy Center employee!  So, as you see, this post really comes full circle.  It started with a band that was recommended to me by a Copy Center co-worker and ends with me going off to watch Pop Copy!

But, before I go, I should also mention that I have not made my last post of the day.  In fact, there may be as many as two new posts from me in the next few hours.  So stay tuned and come back soon for much more brand new fun on the best acoustic rock cover songs blog in the universe — the Laptop Session!

See you next session!

“Thought I Knew” (Weezer Cover)

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By Chris Moore:

Welcome back to the best acoustic rock cover songs music blog on the Internet! What a mouthful…

It’s my pleasure today to bring you a new song from Weezer’s 2008 self-titled album, also known as The Red Album. This is, of course, a nod to their past self-titled albums that were colored blue (The Blue Album) and green (The Green Album). To be certain, Weezer had a lot to live up to when they released their album this year, and I was a bit put off by the remix of “Automatic” that leaked to YouTube videos via a video game trailer.

Then I bought the album and fell in love with it!

Well, to be honest, I found the album a bit quirky at first. I couldn’t decide if I thought the lyrics were catchy or cheesy. The first few songs had so many different sections and styles that it was difficult to get a handle on them. But, after a few listens, I had already decided that this was one of my favorite albums of the year. Aside from some great, catchy, upbeat, rocking, and experimental tracks by frontman Rivers Cuomo, the other three members of the band all contributed in the songwriting and singing departments.

I especially enjoyed “Thought I Knew” by guitarist Brian Bell from the first time I heard it, which is why I chose it as my first Laptop Session from The Red Album. I hope you enjoy it as well, and I can’t wait to play more from this great album!

Don’t forget to check back tomorrow for another all-new and great acoustic rock cover song by Jeff Copperthite…

See you next session!