Tag Archives: original song

“Halfway There” (Original song by Jim Fusco) – The Open Mic Sessions

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By Jim Fusco:

Welcome again to the Open Mic Sessions with me, Jim Fusco!

Today, I bring you the title track to my 2009 album, “Halfway There”.  This is a very special video for me, as this original song live video was selected as one of the top three Instagram videos in the Sam Ash music store open mic video contest!  From there, it went on to win the national Open Mic video contest title!  I was given a $100 gift card to Sam Ash and I’m so glad an original song of mine got that kind of recognition.  It was even featured on Sam Ash’s homepage once it won!

“Halfway There” was a concept I had for an album.  Basically, I was growing up and had to come to terms with getting a job, getting married, and potentially giving up some of the lofty goals I had for myself in previous years.  So, a lot of that album has to do with that sentiment.

But, you know something?  I realized along the way that I’m pretty happy where things ended up.  I realized that I didn’t really want to spend all of my days and nights trying to get gigs, living in perpetual poverty, and holding down some menial job until I hit it big.  Now that I have a normal “day job”, it’s given me the flexibility to  have a nice home and to get some of the guitars that I’ve always wanted.  And, from everything I’ve heard and read, fame isn’t really all it’s cracked-up to be.  I hope to make a name for myself with these Laptop Sessions acoustic cover song music videos online (and maybe get recognized for it someday), but that’s something I can do in my free time.  Problem is, like everyone else that’s married and has a house, I don’t have much free time!

Anyway, I hope you enjoy what I’ve been able to do on my little free time lately.  Going to these open mic nights has brought me out of my comfort zone, but its also ignited my love for playing music again.  I’ve met some interesting people, too.  Stay tuned for more, as I continue to dig into my catalog of original songs and play at open mics around the state.



Editor’s note: this post was originally published before December 2015; the exact original date is uncertain.

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“No More” (Original Song by Indie Music Songwriter Chris Moore)

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By Chris Moore:

And welcome once again, one and all, to the most recent installment of new, original music here at the Laptop Sessions music blog.  We like to call this “Original Wednesday,” as we take a break from our daily acoustic covers to air a song written by one of us.

Today’s selection is the second in my “New Album Preview Project.”  Each time I post an original song, I will record the next song in order of my preliminary track listing for my new album.  From now until I’ve posted them all, I’ll be continuing this project, and hopefully it won’t be long after I finish this little side project that I will finish recording the actual album.

Probably the most difficult part of this project is that I needed to come up with a track listing now, as opposed to when I usually do — after I’ve recorded the principal tracks for an album.  To be honest, this order may change by the time I actually release the album, but it’ll be interesting to see how close I came to estimating what the final product will look like.

“No More” is going to be the second track on the album — one with strong guitars up in the mix and an energetic, driving beat.  The song is fairly self-explanatory, particularly in the first verse or so.  What I like about the song (and another reason why I like having the track so early on the album) is that the second half can be interpreted in a few different ways.  This works, as I hope you will see when it is released, for the album concept as a whole.

On the heels of Jim’s big announcement today, I’m definitely getting the itch to see my numbers going more quickly in an upwards direction, so I hope to come back with good news and milestones in the weeks and months ahead, to join him in these exciting times for the music blog.

Thank you, as always, to our loyal viewers (and, if you aren’t one, I hope you will be one starting now!).  This is really only the second or third time I’ve played this song in full since I finished writing it, so it’s just a starting poing.  I hope you enjoy it and see the potential in it.  That’ll be it for me for now, but stay tuned for Jeff and then Jim and then I’ll be back on Saturday.

See you next session!

Editor’s note: this post was originally published before December 2015; the exact original date is uncertain.

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“How Are You Feeling Tonight?” (Original song by Jim Fusco) – The Open Mic Sessions

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By Jim Fusco:

Hello everyone and welcome to another new edition of the Open Mic Sessions!  That’s the web video series where I showcase some performances from various Open Mic Nights throughout my travels in Connecticut (so far- that radius may increase!).  I’m excited to bring you more original songs in my quest to play a different original song every time I go out there!  At the pace I’m going, it’ll take me quite a while to cover all of my material.

Today, I bring you “How Are You Feeling Tonight?”, which is the last track off of my 2012 album, “Those Around Us”.  This is a favorite of fellow Laptop Sessions songwriter Jeff Copperthite, as are most of my “album-ending” songs.  I’ve always been critical of songs that various bands choose to end their albums.  They tend to choose songs that are slow and introspective.  I think “How Are You Feeling Tonight?” is also slow and introspective, but this song (the recorded version) has a good beat, too.  It’s also got some biting electric guitar- some of my favorite guitar sounds I’ve done so far.  I always want to send the listener off after listening an album with the want to play the disc over again.  So, I try to put a catchy song at the end that will sound good juxtaposed with Track 1.

The original version of this song also contains block harmonies throughout the song.  That’s kind of rare with me, which is odd considering how much I love harmony vocals.  I can only really think of a couple other songs I’ve done that have harmony vocals throughout, namely “Never Outweigh the Chances” from my 2002 album, “My Other Half”. And that song was done like that on suggestion from my brother Mike, so it wasn’t even my own idea!  I’m glad he made the suggestion, though, as I love the way that came out.

I thought this would be a good song to do solo acoustically in a live, open-mic setting.  I wrote the song with an acoustic guitar handy, though I came up with the “How are you feeling tonight?” line while doing something else- probably just singing to myself in the shower or something.  I liked the idea of that- many of us ask questions of those we care about, even though we already know the answer.  Do we ask because we’re trying to confirm our suspicions?  Are we asking to coax an answer out and possibly start a dialogue?  Or, do we ask just out of concern?  These are the types of questions I tried to explore during the writing of “Those Around Us”.

The funny thing is that I didn’t ask these questions consciously throughout the writing process for the album.  After all of the songs were written, I realized the theme of the lyrics I was writing- analyzing the relationships between me and the people around me that I cared about…or used to, for that matter.  I think someday I’ll look back on “Those Around Us” and will be thankful I delved-into that kind of thinking.  I think it helped me understand the relationships I had (have) and the ones I wanted.

I hope you enjoy my open mic session of “How Are You Feeling Tonight?”, another original song here on the Laptop Sessions acoustic music video blog!



Editor’s note: this post was originally published before December 2015; the exact original date is uncertain.

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“Writing Thousand Kingdom Blues” (Original Acoustic Song)

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By Chris Moore:

This, as you’ll probably be able to tell once you start listening to it, is a song that I wrote a long time ago.  In some ways, this would be a reason to choose a different song to record, as I think I have better songs to showcase that I’ve written more recently.  I do feel that I’ve progressed as a writer and that I’ve written more structurally complex and lyrically thoughtful songs.

And yet, in other ways, this is one of those songs that reminds me how I used to write and, in some ways, reminds me of a type of song that I don’t really write any more.  This song, “Writing Thousand Kingdom Blues,” was written just as I really started to get into Bob Dylan’s work.  Everything about him fascinated me — his lyrics, his music, his personality.  Everything about him had an other-worldly feel to it, particularly to a young high school student who had yet to experience many things.  At the time, I hadn’t even heard nearly as much music as I have now.

That being said, I wrote this song without filters.  That is, I didn’t think about literal meaning as I was writing; I focused more on the feeling and the overall image that the words conveyed.  Thus, terms like “chalkboard salesmen” or “unnecessary sports gaming powers-that-be” didn’t need to make immediate sense to everyone; it was more important that what was in my head flowed out and onto the page honestly and in as creative and unique a form as possible.  I’ll freely admit now that I don’t remember exactly what I meant by all these lyrics in the song.  I do remember the specific references for a lot of them, though, and it’s fun to think about the ones that I don’t.  That’s what I always hoped people would want to do with my music — with any music, really — to take it in and come up with a theory about what it means and, perhaps, how it could relate to their own lives.

The inspiration for the title came from a novel I read in my senior year of high school — Jane Smiley’s A Thousand Acres.  My English teacher, Mr. Rinaldi, had us read it alongside Shakespeare’s King Lear and draw comparisons between the characters and plot details.  It was an enjoyable book, and I remember its themes and ideas creeping into my own writing of the time.  That’s actually one of the things I miss most about being a student — the ability to take in a lot of new literature and information in general and tune out class when inspiration hits, putting the pen to paper and writing.  My most boring classes in college were often the ones that I got the most writing done during.  I can think of a couple for which the only interesting aspect was trying to complete a poem or decide on how to finish the chorus to a song.

Ah, well, there’s always my nine remaining master’s degree courses to look forward to…  🙂

Well, that’s it for me tonight.  But, before I conclude, I should point out that I have the honor of recording and posting the very first Original Wednesday of 2009!  For my next Original Wednesday, I’ll be debuting another new song that will be featured on my upcoming album (to be recorded in 2009!).  For now, I hope you enjoy this blast from my recording past.

See you next session!

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