“The Sound of Settling” (Death Cab for Cutie Cover)

For Death Cab for Cutie chords & lyrics, CLICK HERE!

By Chris Moore:

This one gave me blisters on me fingers and numbness in me thumb (thanks to all the sliding up and down the guitar neck, the barre chords in the progression, and the fact that I didn’t really know the lyrics to the verses before playing it tonight), but it was all worth it, for all two minutes of it.

And, quite a number of takes of this simple little song later, I know the lyrics by heart!

“The Sound of Settling” is the second single from Death Cab for Cutie’s fourth album, Transatlanticism.  This is the album that my sister, Jaime, strongly recommended I hear if I hear nothing else from the band.  Seeing as how this is one of those “I’ve heard of them, but I haven’t heard any of their songs” bands for me, I picked it up on sale and enjoyed it.  Apparently, it was the first album that frontman Ben Gibbard felt was a truly serious, well put together record.

While I like several of the songs on this album very much, I haven’t found myself very interested in picking up their other material, as they seem to have a penchant for EPs and other non-album releases.  Those sorts of releases seem nice if you’re a fan and have new material to look forward to, but they’re really quite expensive over the long run.  Consider Ben Folds’ EPs  Speed Graphic, Sunny 16, and Super D; those added up to a combined total of about $24.00 for 15 songs, about 7 or maybe 8 of which were any good.  This is not a slight to the good songs on these EPs; some were tremendous and among his best ever released.

Then there were the covers and outtakes from previous albums that he re-recorded.  And, as any music fan knows, some songs were never meant to see official release outside of designated bonus track status on another album or collection.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this cover song music video, as it is the first Death Cab for Cutie song to be debuted at the Laptop Sessions blog.  There was so little new music of interest this week as well as last week that even I don’t feel a need to visit Newbury Comics today.  And THAT’S saying something!  So, instead, I went back to my iPod to find a band that we had missed along the way.  There are still a lot of bands that have gone uncovered, as well as classic and/or great songs from artists that we have, so don’t even think about taking us out of your “Favorites” menu.

Instead, be sure to stop by later tonight when our founder makes his triumphant return to the second day of the week as it should be:  Jim Fusco Tuesday!

See you next session!

(The text of my original Monday night post follows below the video…)

Originally titled and posted as:

The Laptop Sessions: “_ _ _   _ _ _ _ _   _ _   _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _” (???? Acoustic Rock Cover Song)

By Chris Moore:

Well, my cover song music video for tonight is recorded, rendered, and ready to go…

…and if I actually had Internet (thanks for nothing, Cox!) or even a wireless signal from an unsuspecting, password-phobic neighbor, you’d be reading my post and watching my video. Instead, I’ll be posting both my session and the accompanying chords tomorrow after I get a visit from the cable guy (lower case for any of you Jim Carrey fans thinking the worst!) some time between 10:30 and 12:30.

Until then, I’ll leave you with the following clues about the song I’m playing:

1) The song is from one of my favorite albums to listen to at night in a dark room, sometimes to fall asleep to.

2) The aforementioned album is NOT “Pet Sounds.”

3) My sister recommended this band and album.

4) The band is named for the song performed by the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band in the 1967 Beatles movie, “Magical Mystery Tour.”

5) The band’s name is comprised of four words – an adjective, a noun, a preposition, and an object of the prep. -in that order.

Okay, that’s all I’ll give you. Check back Tuesday afternoon for the startling conclusion to this post!

“Break Your Heart” (Barenaked Ladies Cover)

By Chris Moore:

Hello and welcome to what is a momentous occasion for me…  my 100th Laptop Session!  That’s — count ’em — one hundred acoustic rock cover songs, recorded after almost nine months of posting every third day.  Thus far, Jim is the only one of us to reach the 100 mark and Jeff can’t be too far behind me, so this is definitely an exciting time for us here at the music blog.

I wanted to make today’s session a great one, so I decided to go barenaked.  Barenaked Ladies, that is!  As I explained in my previous post, I love the Steven Page-sung track from Born on a Pirate Ship called “Break Your Heart.”  It’s quite the emotional tune and is certainly characterized (and highlighted!) by a classic Steven Page lead vocal.  I almost felt silly even attempting this song, considering that it is not exactly in my range, but I wanted to set the bar high for my next hundred videos.  By this time next year, I would love to have 100 more songs recorded, and have many of them be more ambitious, more perfected, and overall more exciting than even the first hundred.

I mean, don’t get me wrong; it’s been a crazy ride thus far.  But still, I’m excited to improve and increase the popularity of the blog.  It would be nice to know that people were actually reading these blog posts; it would certainly make me want to write longer, more interesting and informative entries.

Before I leave you to the video, I need to share one last tidbit from my day.  I hadn’t downloaded all the free music at Fusco-Moore.com/Store, so I took a little trip on over and “purchased” all that free material.  If you’re a Laptop Sessions fan in the least, then this is a must-have — we have eight volumes worth of acoustic rock covers, not to mention live shows.

Well, that’s it for me tonight — Aside from the fact that I’m nodding off as we speak and wondering when Jim will notice that I’ve completely slumped over on my laptop, I’m going to let my video speak for itself.  Stay tuned for another cover from Jeff tomorrow and another from Jim the following day.  And, guess what?  I’ll be back on the third day for yet another acoustic cover song on the best cover music blog in the universe!

See you next session!

“I Hung My Head” (Johnny Cash Cover)

By Chris Moore:

Hello and welcome to this Easter Sunday edition of the Laptop Sessions! Yes, that’s right, during 2008 we’re playing a song a day, even on the holidays…

I thought it would be fitting to play Johnny Cash’s “I Hung My Head” for Easter — it involves death and the idea of moving on to heaven (or hell, depending on how you interpret his lyrics). This is from the same album as his final hit, his cover of Trent Reznor’s “Hurt.” I’ll be recording that one in the future, as well.

On a side note, I should reach my 100th subscriber by my next session on Wednesday, and I’ll be giving him/her a $10 coupon to the Fusco-Moore Store, as promised! To think that, at the beginning of February, I only had 10 subscribers and I wasn’t planning on 50 until the end of the year…

I hope you enjoy this video, and I hope you’ll comment or rate it!


“Oh, Sister” (Bob Dylan Cover)

By Chris Moore:

If you enjoyed Jim’s rendition of “To Be Alone With You” from yesterday’s Laptop Session, then I hope you’ll love this Bob Dylan tune, too! Going right along in chronological order, “Oh, Sister” is from his 1975 album Desire. Better known for the song “Hurricane,” Desire really is one of my favorite Dylan albums. It doesn’t hurt that I have fond memories of this one — I’ve been listening to it since Jim bought it (before me!) and brought it to our drivers’ education classes. In contrast, I suppose anything would be more exciting!

I have some good news — by the end of the day, I’ll be joining Jim and Jeff in the 5,000+ YouTube views club!
I’m really excited, so thank you to all who have been watching and supporting these videos.

I hope you’ll keep coming back as “One-A-Day” rolls on in 2008 at guitarbucketlist.com!