For the acoustic cover song music video, CLICK HERE!
“The One I Love”
R.E.M.
Em D Em
This one goes out to the one I love.
This one goes out to the one I’ve left behind.
G D Am C
A simple prop to occupy my time…
Em D Em
This one goes out to the one I love.
Em D Em
Fire…
Fire…
This one goes out to the one I love.
This one goes out to the one I’ve left behind.
A simple prop to occupy my time…
This one goes out to the one I love.
Fire…
Fire…
This one goes out to the one I love.
This one goes out to the one I’ve left… behind.
Another prop has occupied my time.
This one goes out to the one I love.
Fire…
Fire…
** These chords and lyrics are interpretations and transcriptions, respectively, and are the sole property of the copyright holder(s). They are posted on this website free of charge for no profit for the purpose of study and commentary, as allowed for under the “fair use” provision of U.S. copyright law, and should only be used for such personal and/or academic work. **
For those wondering how long it’s been since I last recorded a bona fide “Laptop Session,” please refer to my YouTube page, and check the length of my hair.
(This has long been one of my favorite aspects of the LS blog, as I can skim through the stills of my cover song music videos posted over the span of months and years and watch my hair grow out, out, out, then get cut, and continue to grow… Well, you get the idea.)
That being said, I decided several months ago that I would only post a cover song again when the time felt right. I’ve been keeping quite active reviewing albums for the Weekend Review and “Yes, No, or Maybe So” segments that are regularly published here at the site. However, I haven’t recorded an official cover song session since April 11th.
It’s now July 6th.
I spent the morning and afternoon this past Saturday driving around the state with a dear friend, windows down with selections from our favorite albums blasting at full volume. All the time, we were singing along and pointing out our favorite sections and solos, etc. in the various songs. Of course, the first album we chose was one with the following line: “I feel fine with the sun in my eyes, the wind in my hair…”
I’m referring to my pick for number one album of the decade and my personal favorite: the Wallflowers’ Red Letter Days.
This is one of those records that incessantly hits you with great songs, track after track. After the rock/pop/alternative rock attack of the first four tracks, the fifth track slows down a notch, but is equally as catchy as the songs that have come before. I’m referring to “Three Ways,” a beautiful little song that I’m featuring here this morning on the blog.
When I heard it again in my friend Mike’s car, I spent part of the duration thinking how much I would like to learn it on acoustic guitar. And that feeling didn’t dissipate days later. Thus, I took a break from reading Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass yesterday to figure out the chords to “Three Ways.” I found chords online, but not surprisingly, they were significantly flawed. This cemented my desire to complete a full session, posting chords and lyrics for others to access that are accurate to the song. For the chords, I spent quite a while playing to the song and experimenting with different options until I pieced together the core components of the song. As for the lyrics, I went to the CD booklet — one of the reasons I love having physical copies of my music — and copied them from there. (In fact, if you enjoy this song at all, I would strongly encourage you to check out this album, either as a download from iTunes or some other service, but PREFERABLY as a physical CD. I’m telling you: this is not only one of the best albums of all time, but it has excellent packaging as well!)
After a few takes, I recorded one that I was happy with, which is the one you’ll see tonight. So, without further ado, I’ll leave you to the actual recording. Enjoy…
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 another week of new music and material, brought to you by the best acoustic cover song music video this side of the Alpha Quadrant! (That’s a little Star Trek: Voyager reference for those of you nerds out there…)
For my song tonight, I’ve chosen my first Radiohead cover. How did I get to this song? Well, I’ve been listening non-stop to A Singer Must Die, Steven Page’s collaboration with the Art of Time Ensemble. The final track on that album is a cover of Radiohead’s song “Paranoid Android.” That song is from their 1997 album OK Computer. Listening to that album today, I came across “Exit Music (For A Film),” a great little track that has a strong acoustic foundation.
And, after all, I realized that Jeff is the only contributor to the blog who has recorded a Radiohead track, and all four of his selections are from their album The Bends. Now, I’ve never heard The Bends, but of the albums I’ve heard, my favorite has always been OK Computer.
What better reason to pull out a track from that release for tonight’s video?
The other story behind tonight’s session is that I had originally planned to cover a song in honor of the final edition of the Johnny Cash “American” series, American VI: Ain’t No Grave, which comes out tomorrow. I would have loved to record Sheryl Crow’s “Redemption Day,” but I couldn’t work out an arrangment I was happy with. The only other song I was halfway interested in taking on was Kris Kristofferson’s “For the Good Times.” I had learned, practiced, and planned to record it until I got home and realized I was too bored by it. It would have been an extremely simple song to record — easy chords, basic country structure, etc.
But what fun would that be?
So, I kept coming back to Radiohead and the fact that we’ve never recorded a cover from the classic OK Computer. Figuring out the chords for “Exit Music” was more difficult than “For the Good Times.” I found a couple different versions online, and what confused me most was how both sets that I found began with the same couple chords but then varied wildly. In some cases, the first was accurate. In others, the second was accurate. In others, neither were accurate. In the end, that was half the fun of this session: I feel like I got acquainted with the song through having to figure it out, so I felt a lot more passionately about recording it.
I suppose I’ll just have to wait for Johnny Cash’s versions of “Redemption Day” and “For the Good Times”…
Going back to the reason I started listening to Radiohead today in the first place, I wanted to repeat that I have been enjoying Steven Page’s A Singer Must Die much more than I initially thought I would. When I first learned of this release, the prospect of an album of covers performed with an ensemble did not appeal to me in the slightest. As time went on, I became more and more interested to hear what it sounded like. Although I couldn’t bring myself to pay for the shipping that it would have taken to get a physical, autographed copy, I had assumed that Newbury Comics would be stocking it. Then, last Tuesday, I was shocked to learn that it wasn’t available at any retailer in the U.S., nor was it available on iTunes. I thought I would have to wait…
…that is, until Steven Page tweeted the link to his online store that had just added the digital version of the album. As you can read in my review (CLICK HERE!), I found the choice of songs, the performances, and the arrangment of tracks to be outstanding. To be fair, it’s not an album I’ll be cranking up in my car, but it is certainly an album that has and will continue to get a lot of air time at home. The most exciting part about this week’s edition of the Weekend Review is the endorsement it was given. After I wrote and posted the review yesterday, I also posted a tweet with a link so that people who follow me could read it. Then, Mike retweeted my post and added Steven Page (@stevenpage). Finally — and this is the exciting part — Steven Page actually retweeted Mike’s post! So, in summary, Mike and I both managed to be retweeted by, as I wrote in my text to Mike, STEVEN FRICKIN’ PAGE!!! In all seriousness, I was thrilled that he took the review seriously enough to retweet it, and I was happy to see the increased traffic on the page for yesterday and today.
As a final, non-music related note, I spent my first hour and a half after school today camped out in the living room with snacks and season five episodes of The Office. The reason? Not just because I’m lazy, although that was probably a contributing factor. No, it had to do with the stench coming from my dishwasher. There’s some kind of issue with the pipes or the dishwasher itself, and nothing I did seemed to help the smell. So, after retreating for a while and feeling a bit depressed about the whole situation, I got excited about this session, which revived me. Then, Nicole came home from her class with some advice from her father. Fifteen minutes later, problem solved! At least for now, as this will only work permanently if it’s an issue with the pipes. If it’s the actual dishwasher, then I’ll probably return home today (or, at the latest, when I run the dishwasher next weekend) to a not so pleasant odor.
I’m not sure why I felt the need to share that, other than the fact that it is a great example of the power of the Laptop Sessions — they have the power to ruin a night (computer issues, multiple takes, etc.), or to revive your day.
And, with that, I hope you have a great week, keep checking back for new material this week, and I’ll see you next session!
