Trivia: Yes, the title is actually “High Water (For Charley Patton)” — but, that’s just too long for YouTube’s liking. Isn’t that just like Bob Dylan? Always breaking the rules…
Hello and welcome to Monday’s installment of the Laptop Sessions! Today, I bring you a song off of Dylan’s 2001 Love and Theft album. At first, it was one of my least favorite on the album, but the more I listened to it, the more I really got into its dark sound and interesting lyrics. I actually decided to record this one today because my voice is almost entirely shot (and I figured, hey, what better time to play a contemporary Dylan tune?). I recorded about five takes of this song, and four of the outtakes were due to coughing. Because I couldn’t really sing all that loud, I dropped the pick and moved closer to the microphone — I’m glad I did, since it seems to work for this song.
I’d like to say again how much fun it was to play some of MoU’s new songs live at the SCSU Talent Show at the Lyman Center last Wednesday. I really encourage you to do one of the following:
1 ) Watch the live videos on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/user/jimfusco.com/albums.html ,
2) Hear the recorded versions in full off the brand-new Homestead’s Revenge album at http://jimfusco.com/albums.html ,
or, if you like the songs,
3) Buy the album!
Okay, that’s enough shameless plugging for today… 🙂 Thanks again to all who have been watching my videos — it’s really exciting to keep seeing my total view count rising. It makes this project all the more fun!
Hello and welcome to an all-new week of cover songs at the best acoustic cover song music video blog in the universe — guaranteed, or your money back!
I guess the guilt falls to me for breaking the Beatles marathon…
It’s been a blast reviewing Beatles albums, recording Fab Four covers, and watching the Traveling Acai Berrys’ and Jeff’s renditions, but now it’s time for me to inject a little fresh music into the timeline of the Laptop Sessions.
“Just Breathe” is track five from the new Pearl Jam album Backspacer, and is truly a perfect fit for the Laptop Sessions format. The studio version is primarily Eddie Vedder singing and playing acoustic guitar, so it only took memorizing the words and transcribing the chords. As usual, I started online and found a site with chords and lyrics that were almost right.
Well, “almost right” doesn’t fly around here.
The middle is NOT comprised of C and F chords; that “C” simply didn’t sound quite right. It should be Am instead of C. In addition, there were some minor lyrical inaccuracies — “all” instead of “are,” “save” instead of “take,” etc. The person who transcribed the song included a personal note about the song at the bottom, and he seemed like a really nice guy who truly loved this song. And he made figuring out this song much easier than if I had simply started on my own.
But that’s what we at the Laptop Sessions pride ourselves about — our commitment to performing songs as faithfully as possible, cross-checking our facts to be certain what we write is accurate, and always knowing when a song has already been recorded as a session.
Oh, right. About that last one…
I need to apologize to Jeff for recording “You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away” as though he had never recorded it. The funny part is that, when I went back and read his post later, I clearly remembered reading it. I recalled his mention of Eddie Vedder (whose music I barely knew and wasn’t enthusiastic about at the time), and I remembered being intrigued by his “Semaphore” reference. Apparently, flag semaphore is a system of symbols for conveying information through waving flags or bare hands. Although photographer Robert Freeman had the idea to have John, Paul, George, and Ringo spell out “HELP” in semaphore, they decided on a different arrangement — “NUJV”– that was more aesthetically pleasing as the cover art for Help!
Going back to the song of the day, I should acknowledge that I originally planned to record “The End,” and I practiced it a number of times with that intention in mind. In fact, a former student of mine emailed me with the idea of recording it, so I was reluctant to admit to myself that the chorus is just too far out of my range. I still posted the chords and lyrics, though, so others might be able to enjoy learning and playing it. Guest session, anyone?
As I was preparing for my session last week, I had been listening back to some of my recent sessions and realized something. Since I moved from the Fusco-Moore Experience to my current apartment, I have never worn the same shirt twice while recording a music video. Here’s a quick retrospective:
July 13 – Bob Dylan Together Through Life t-shirt (thanks again, Fusc!)
July 20 – Vermont t-shirt (thanks, Mom & Dad!)
August 4 – plaid, western-looking collared shirt
August 4 (second video) – Dodge Charger t-shirt (thanks, Jim!)
August 31 – Abbey Road t-shirt from London (thanks, Nicole!)
September 28 -black Bass fishing t-shirt
Today marks my tenth video, and thus it is my tenth shirt. My goal is to never wear the same shirt twice. Even though I’m running out of t-shirts, we are heading into winter, so my long sleeve shirts will be featured soon. When spring comes, it should get interesting. I wonder if I can fit into Nicole’s shirts…
Anyway, I hope you enjoy my video. This completes my recent Pearl Jam run, adding both a full album review and a one-sentence review of Backspacer, chords & lyrics to three songs, and now a full Laptop Sessions post.
Aside from an ever-increasing stack of grading on my desk at school, life has been hectic but good recently. I’ve been really excited about the music on my iPod and in my car this past month. After going through quite the dry spell during the summer — Third Eye Blind and Sister Hazel, anyone? — the Arctic Monkeys and Pearl Jam have added some excitement to my “Albums- 2009” playlist. In addition, my birthday weekend has been pretty laid back, but a lot of fun. I heard from just about all my closest friends, and Jaime even came up from New York to visit on Sunday and give me the beautifully designed “Chris Moore Birthday Bash!” mix CD! I’m itching to start tweeting about the FYE gift card that Mike got me, Nicole bought me (among other awesome items ranging from practical to academic to entertaining) a book of essays about Bob Dylan written by scholars, I got a text message from Alb that brought me back to our summer of video gaming, and I’m officially, finally having breakfast next week with one of my dearest friends who I haven’t seen for over a year. Good stuff all around.
Hello and welcome to this weekend edition of the Laptop Sessions video blog! Today’s acoustic cover song is from the Foo Fighters, a band that my fellow songwriter Jeff Copperthite has covered several times before. I’ve only gotten into this music within the past few months, after a faithful YouTube viewer and fan of the Laptop Sessions requested that I cover the Foo Fighters song “Everlong.” I went out to the store, bought the album The Colour and the Shape, and immediately got into it. For those of you who don’t know me, you need to understand that I’m a big fan of well-packaged CD’s, and this was the 10th anniversary remix with a nice, lengthy booklet and a shiny cover. Now, this may have coloured (pun intended) my perception of it, but what I really liked about the album was its overall progression. It begins with an electric guitar and Dave Grohl’s subdued vocals on “Doll,” a song that gradually builds up and suddenly ends after about a minute and a half. The next song, “Monkey Wrench,” is pure energy and rock’n’roll. The album continues to rev up and slow down and vary as it goes. Previously to this, I had only heard their In Your Honor album. I love the concept — one disc of electric songs, one of acoustic music — but I found it unremarkable.
I haven’t quite perfected my version of “Everlong,” but this is another great track from the album to tide you over while I practice that one. “Hey, Johnny Park!” is a title that I have yet to understand — Foo Fighters fans please help by commenting here!! — and it certainly made me stretch my range a bit, but I love the guitar intro/riff and it really translated pretty well as an acoustic cover song, as the other Foo Fighters covers by Jeff did.
Without further ado, here’s your official Saturday Laptop Session — don’t forget to check back tomorrow for another quality Copperthite cover…
And a happy Thumpin’ Thursday to you as well! I hope this evening finds you healthy, warm, and enjoying the awesome weather we are supposed to receive for the next few days. I can finally say “So Long and Farewell” to Winter, and to the hope of any more snow days from school.
Of course, I may be smitten for saying that.
Well, anyway today’s song is one that I actually heard a couple of days ago and said “Hmm…that song would be a good one to cover”, so here you are! It’s another song by Nirvana and is called “About A Girl”. It is from their debut 1989 album “Bleach” (wonder if it was clean…).
I did some reading about the history of this song and there’s a few cool stories about it. First off, when presented to the band the then-drummer Chad Channing asked Kurt Cobain what the song was about, and Cobain replied “It’s about a girl”. Cobain didn’t want it put on the album for fear of it being too pop sounding, and having it overwrite their perceived grunge image from their fanbase. Eventually they decided to put it on the album, citing the producer’s image of it even being a single.
There was a girl that he wrote it about. It was his then-girlfriend Tracy Marander. She had asked him at one point why he hadn’t written a song about her, and that was among the inspirations that helped him write this song. Funny thing is it took 10 years for her to find out that the song was about her, and she only found out by reading the biography of Nirvana called “Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana”.
The song is a rather light number and is perfect for our covering style. I hope you enjoy it! I’ll see you next week, and be sure to check back throughout the week for more covers from all of us!
Editor’s Note: Unfortunately, Jeff’s acoustic cover song music videos are no longer on YouTube, but we decided to keep his cover song blog posts up. We figured these music blog entries would be good for posterity’s sake and because Jeff always gave such insightful posts each Session. We hope to see Jeff’s impressive catalog of acoustic rock songs here on the Laptop Sessions cover songs and origianal music blog again in the future. But, for now, please make sure to check-out hundreds of other acoustic cover songs from all of your favorite bands here on the Laptop Sessions music blog!
