Welcome to Tuesday’s installment of The Laptop Sessions! I’m a bit late with this post because I had Dynamis in FFXI this evening, and the take I did before that didn’t come out very well. So I had to do it after that.
The song I chose tonight is called “Nothingman” by Pearl Jam. It is from their 3rd album “Vitalogy”. I love this album and plan on doing a couple more songs from Pearl Jam in future sessions.
Due to an index finger injury to my left hand two months ago, I still have some problems getting the Bb chord down on an acoustic guitar. It is getting better, but you may notice a sound quality difference when I play that chord.
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!
Good evening and I hope your weekend is off to a good start. It’s Where-the-heck-is-Jeff Copperthite here today to bring you the latest installment of the Laptop Sessions, another in our series of Beatles cover songs, and session cover song music video #90 overall.
I am continuing to delve into the libraries of previously covered bands, and I have always enjoyed todays song a lot. It really is amazing just how many Beatles’ songs I know and am familiar with. Of that huge library, this is probably my favorite.
“You’ve got to hide your love away” is from the Beatles’ album “Help!” and it’s extremely incorrect Semaphore album cover. You may also be familiar with the cover version of this song by Eddie Vedder. And while that is a good version, it’s hard to beat the original.
You will notice a singing style that i’m not used too, and I feel it is quite effective. Lately I have been hearing great things about my most recent video, and that my ability to sing on video has taken a lot of leaps. i’m glad you think so! Thank you for all your support.
Also, i’m nearing 39K views, and while I fell about 2K short of my 40K goal by the end of August, I still did quite well and I am very proud of how we are doing. No reason we can’t continue to increase our views per day.1
I hope you enjoy today’s session!
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!
Assistant Editor/site curator note: This post was originally from February 19, 2009. The post doesn’t mention too many “historically inaccurate” information, but still always good to see where things were. Enjoy this latest blast from the past!
Welcome to Thumpin’ Thursday for the first time in a couple of weeks. Here’s a couple of updates for you. My health is much better now after a shaky four days from Wednesday to Sunday last week. The vacation is helping tremendously. Also, i’ve hit 90K views, and I should hit the 6 digit mark in the near near future!
Tonight I have a brand new cover song for you. It’s a song that I have yet to see anybody cover, or post the chords too. The song is by Sheryl Crow, and it’s a single off her album “Detours”. The song “Out of Our Heads” shares the title of a Rolling Stones’ album. However, the song is drastically different. It’s also very catchy, and unfortunately it’s hard to capture the catchiness in an acoustic cover.
The hardest part for me is the fact I had to figure this song out on my own. I’ve never been very good at transcribing guitar chords by ear. I used to make MIDI files for a couple of Final Fantasy games in my teenage years, and I got good at picking out individual instruments and tracking those for the MIDI. I also could figure out bass riffs, but i’d use those bass riffs to figure out guitar parts, which worked for a fair amount of the time.
So what you’re watching is my transcription of the song. I figured out it was a capo’d song from the music video that Sheryl Crow made. However, the sound I picked up was from a first fretted capo, not a sixth like in the video. Sure, it worked on sixth when I was messing around with it, but it sounded more accurate on 1st.
Here are the chords I transcribed, relative to 1st fret capo.
Verse: Am, F, C, G
Chorus: Am, C, F, C, G
If you have suggestions or changes, please let me know about them. I hope, regardless, you enjoy tonight’s video!
Welcome to my first Original Wednesday original acoustic song music video for the year 2009! It’s Jim Fusco here with a great song that we chose to kick-off our (and by “our”, I mean the band Masters of the Universe, or MoU) second album, “Homestead’s Revenge”. The song is “Only A Dream” and it’s a chorus I wrote the tune to, but never did anything else with.
I remember the day very vividly. It was one of our band songwriting sessions and I remember finally fleshing-out the chorus with the help of Chris, Mike, Becky, and Cliff. Then, I ran over to the piano and started to work out chord progressions for the verses. I came up with the very interesting Em7 to Bm chord progression and I really love the tune that goes along with it. I remember sitting there working and hearing Becky and Chris deciding on words to go into the chorus of the song.
I took my ideas over to the rest of the band and we worked out the words. We came up with this image of a man in a jail cell. The conversation went something like this: “How about a man locked in a jail cell that’s dreaming about getting out?” “Oh yeah- like he’s locked in there!” “Okay, let’s see- ‘Locked in solitary confinement…’” “No, that doesn’t work with the tune…” “Locked in solidarity…” “That doesn’t make sense, though.” “Oh, but it does! The guy is locked up AND he’s all alone!” “Perfect!”
And that’s how the writing session went- we scrutinized everything but were able to paint a very realistic image of the idea we were getting across. Why don’t you just listen and find out what that message is?
I also remember Mike returning from the back room, playing his middle-8. I love that part of the song and it leads right back into the chorus very well. He did that on “These Streets” from the same album. The lyrics are great on the middle-8 to “These Streets”- we were thinking about that kind of great fast-paced life you think you have in high school and threw in, “Live like it’s 1999,” because I was a freshman/sophomore in 1999.
Also, I was very excited when we all did the vocals. On the original (which you can hear by going to MoU’s Official Website), you’ll hear double-tracked vocals from each of the five members of the band on the choruses and backgrounds, PLUS the lead vocals.
Some fun facts: Chris, Cliff, Mike, and I recorded our vocals together and we dubbed Becky’s much softer voice later on two other tracks so I could handle it better in the mix. It isn’t easy blending a female voice into four other male voices. But, my voice must not be too far off from a female’s voice, which made it easier to mix. Why do I say that? Well, on the middle-8, you’ll hear the backing vocals come in. I love that part. Well, on that section, Becky doesn’t sing- it’s just Mike’s lead, then Mike, Chris, Cliff, and I on backing vocals. I sang the high part (doing my best Becky impression) because we seamlessly wove the backing vocals around Mike’s lead, allowing us to use only four other backing vocal harmony parts. I remember doing those backing vocals that night with the boys and we were all so incredibly excited. After we finished each good take, we’d get so stoked about it. The greatest backing vocals I think I’ve ever heard are during the second half of the second verse. The way that some of the vocals move around and some stay the same…it’s really a stroke of genius on my part! 🙂 Want to hear just the vocals-only section? Click HERE and you’ll go to the Albums page on the MoU website. The clip of only the vocals from that section will play in the background. Click around to the other pages on the site and you’ll hear more rare vocals-only clips from the album!
Well, I hope you enjoy this great original song. It was truly a collaborative effort- a great, catchy song- that was the perfect album-starter. Until next Tuesday, I hope you have a great week. Make sure to come back tomorrow for your Jeff Copperthite Thumpin’ Thursday acoustic cover song music video!
