Tag Archives: music video

“Cornerstone” by the Arctic Monkeys – Chords, Tabs, & How to Play

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“Cornerstone”
Arctic Monkeys

A                                                         D                          Bm
I thought I saw you in The Battleship but it was only a lookalike.
She was nothing but a vision trick under the warning light.
Bm         F#m    A                                     F#m
She was close, close enough to be your ghost,
F#m     A
But my chances turned to toast when I
D                   Bm                        A
asked her if I could call you her name.

I thought I saw you in The Rusty Hook, huddled up in a wicker chair.
I wandered over for a closer look and kissed whoever was sitting there.
She was close and she held me very tightly until I asked awfully politely,
“Please can I call you her name?”

D                           Bm
I elongated my lift home.
F#m                                           D
I let him go the long way round.
Bm                                                        E
I smelt your scent on the seat belt and kept my short cuts to myself.

I thought I saw you in The Parrot’s Beak messing with the smoke alarm.
It was too loud for me to hear her speak and she had a broken arm.
It was close, so close that the walls were wet,
And she wrote it out in Letraset,
D Bm C#m
“No, you can’t call me her name.”

A                                 C#m
Tell me where’s your hiding place?
A                         C#m
I’m worried I’ll forget your face.
F#m
I’ve asked everyone;
Bm                                      E
I’m beginning to think I imagined you all along…

D                           Bm
I elongated my lift home.
F#m                                           D
I let him go the long way round.
Bm                                                        Dm
I smelt your scent on the seat belt and kept my short cuts to myself.

SOLO:  (A      D – Bm) x2
F#m     Bm
D          E

I saw your sister in The Cornerstone on the phone to the middle man.
When I saw that she was on her own I thought she might understand.
She was close, well you couldn’t get much closer;
She said, “I’m really not supposed to,
but yes, you can call me anything you want.”

** 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. **

“Cast No Shadow” (Oasis Cover) [SEASON PREMIERE!]

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By Ben:

[Editor’s Note: We received this video from the performer’s daughter a few days ago, and it seemed like the perfect note on which to kick off a new season of Guest Sessions videos on the Laptop Sessions blog.  The LS Blog was originally founded by one man with a guitar, a laptop, and a living room as his stage. Over 600 music videos, hundreds of music reviews, and dozens of special features later, the Laptop Sessions continues to be a source for quality commentary on music.  After all, what is a cover song if not an attempt to interact with and add ourselves into the conversation about our favorite original music?  So, check out the video below, and check back every other week for more from the best cover song music video blog in the universe!]

A note from his daughter, Jordane:

My papa singing and playing guitar to one of his favourite songs. I feel like it shouldn’t just be me admiring his talent in his living room, but I feel other people from all around the world should admire him too. Please enjoy!

“No Lights, No Sound” (Original Wednesday)

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By Chris Moore:

Well, it’s been a while since I posted a music video, so I figured I’d better make certain my YouTube account was still functional…

This week, instead of recording a cover song, I felt that it was time to kick off The 2010 Project music video series I’ve been planning for a while.  You may be wondering, what exactly is The 2010 Project?  It is the working title — and, based on a recent conversation, very possibly the official title — of my forthcoming album.

Thus far, as of April break, I’ve chosen the thirteen songs that I plan to record and completed the writing of both music and lyrics.  Since then, I’ve recorded acoustic demos of each song and begun listening them in order to help me think of and decide on arrangements and various aspects of how I’d like the final products to sound.  I’ve been experimenting with GarageBand drum loops, and I’ve been practicing the songs quite a bit since April.  Every weekend since then, I’ve taken an hour to sit down and play through the album in order.

As with any big project like recording an album’s worth of material, anything’s liable to change by the time the final product is ready to be heard.  That being said, I plan to string together thirteen installments in this music video series, each featuring one of the aforementioned songs.  And, understanding that anything can change, I’ll be releasing them here on the blog in the order I plan to sequence them on the album.

The first song up is “No Lights, No Sound.”  Laptop Sessions regulars may recognize this as a video I’ve already recorded and posted over a year ago.  However, this is the finalized version, with some slight lyric changes and additional verses.  This song is a rare case of old lyrics re-emerging on a new song.  The story here is that, a few months ago, I came across the lyrics for an old song that I never really committed to, but had always liked a few lines from.  I thought they might fit nicely into this song, and with a few alterations, I think they do.

In a lot of ways, this is one of the simplest songs on the list, a tune that started as I walked around my room in the dark almost two years ago.  I was home alone, my capo on the second fret from having played another song (which I’ve since forgotten), and the first line sort of came to me: “The lights are off; there’s no one around…”  I wrote this and the first chorus, but that was it for a while.  It wasn’t until months later that I added the middle section and new verses.  Then, this past April, I deleted a verse and added two more in.

“No Lights, No Sound” is a song that has weathered several phases in my recent life, a track that has been conceived, shaped, and reshaped by these phases and survives in its current form with a scheduled slot as the opening track of The 2010 Project.

I hope you like this one.  For some reason, even though my allergies haven’t been hitting me as hard as they probably will soon, my voice wasn’t at its peak today.  That being said, I feel that worked for this solo acoustic performance.

So, without further ado, here is the first installment in the series — hurry back every day this week and both days of the weekend for new posts!

See you next session!

“Alison” (Elvis Costello Cover)

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For Elvis Costello chords & lyrics, CLICK HERE!

By Chris Moore:

Good evening and welcome to another week of all-new Laptop Sessions posts!  Today was busy, and although I had a lot of work to do around the condo, I was able to finally relax a bit and begin enjoying being here.  Since tonight marks my first cover song music video since the move, you’ll notice a new backdrop.  It’s a bit plain, since we’re still unpacking boxes and hanging up posters, etc.  In fact, I’m not entirely sure where I want to play my sessions here.  Although I miss having the “wall o’ CD’s” in the background as I did when I lived in the apartment, I do like the light and acoustics of the living room here at the condo.

Still, the visuals should come second to the song at hand.  My session tonight is a cover of Elvis Costello’s “Alison” from his classic 1977 debut album My Aim is True.  As for how I’ve never recorded this song before, I really don’t have an explanation.  This is widely considered Costello’s best known and best loved recording, second only to “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding?”  There are certainly other Costello songs that are more rocking, more complex, or simply better, but this heartbreaking tune is a wonderful little song.  Although I’ve loved Elvis Costello and the Imposters since Delivery Man, I’ve only recently gotten into his older material (via Live at Hollywood High – CLICK HERE for the full review).  Even still, I’ve always loved “Alison.”

I’ve been thinking recently about why it took me a while to warm to Costello’s material, and my best guess is the way his “best of” is compiled.  The Very Best of Elvis Costello, the quintessential EC greatest hits that was released in April 2001, is a two-disc set with virtually no booklet to speak of.  This, to me, is a cardinal sin — how could one, as an album designer, decide to disconnect a “best of” compilation from the appropriate context?  Instead of liner notes, there is a series of the same photo of Costello colorized in different shades.  And, really, I would have been happy with any type of text: brief notes about each song, an essay about Costello, or even a message/reflection from the man himself.

And what really surprised me years ago when I opened this CD on Christmas morning was that it was a Rhino release.  Anyone who’s ever bought an album release from Rhino knows that they’re typically very generous with booklets and other packaging.  At least, that’s the experience that I’ve had.

Regardless, I picked up Live at Hollywood High, an Elvis Costello and the Attractions concert from 1978, out of curiosity, and I actually felt a little guilty about spending money on it.  After all, the last time I had listened to his early songs, I hadn’t been overly interested.  But it has also been a good number of years since I had heard them.

The concert is fantastic.

I went back last week and listened to all 140 EC songs on my iPod and five-starred the songs I really liked.  In the end, I was left with a 36 song playlist that I’ve been listening to in shuffle mode constantly for days.  (And, since there’s no new music of interest coming out this week, it’ll have to sustain me for another seven days.)  Not surprisingly, several of the live versions of his songs made the playlist over the studio versions.  Typically, I opt for studio recordings, but this was one of those cases where the live versions are sometimes just better — more catchy, passionate, etc.

The studio recording of “Alison” is classic, though.

I’m posting late tonight because I had a faculty meeting today, followed by a trip to a fancy locale known as K-Mart (remember those??) to pick up a dinette set with the help of my parents, and I’ve been building the chairs ever since.  You can’t believe how many nuts, bolts, washers, spring washers, screws, and other little pieces go into the assembly of these things.

It’s been so much work that I might record my session next week at the dining room table just to feel like it was for a purpose…

Seriously though, it’s actually been a lot of fun just building this set while watching season five of The Office.  Of course, it wouldn’t be exciting without an issue.  In this case, I unpacked the pieces to find that the table has a six-inch crack down the center of it.  They’re getting more in on Friday, so I’ll be able to complete the building then, but I just have to wonder…  why did it have to be the BIGGEST piece that’s broken?  Couldn’t it have been something like one of the chair spindles?

Until next week, I want to remind you to stay tuned here all week for some great new posts.  There are more Laptop Sessions to come, as well as music reviews and more.  And the Guest Sessions submissions have been multiplying recently, which I couldn’t be more thrilled about, so once I review those videos, you can look forward to the cream of that particular crop over the next few weeks.

See you next session!