I have looked forward to this edition of Original Wednesday for quite some time. I get to world premiere a song from my upcoming album Greenlight.
The song is the first track, and it is called “Shadows Of Your Dreams”. The song is interesting to play on the acoustic guitar because in the recording I do not have a track for acoustic guitar. Therefore, you are watching me play this song for the first time on acoustic since I wrote the song almost a year ago.
I am really looking forward to Sunday! I hope you are planning on purchasing this album in the near future. It essentially is my first solo effort, and I am proud of the end product of nearly a half a year of work.
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 original 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!
The day has arrived! After months of recording, writing, and late nights, my first solo album has been released today!
I am very proud of this work, and I hope that you give it a listen and buy it if you like it. I have looked forward to this day since I announced the project.
It is hard to describe music in words, so the best recommendation I have for you to is to listen to it yourself – head on over to the store and preview it, and for $4 you can experience a fresh new album anywhere you want on your mp3 player.
Welcome to Original Wednesday! How exciting for me, because it only comes once every three weeks.I can’t wait until my new music officially comes out so I can do Sessions of those songs, but for now, I’ll settle for my last album, “What About Today?”
This song is called “Don’t Be That Way” and it kicks off the album. There’s some references to my past songs in here, so if you know any of my older music, you’ll get the “inside lines”. This song goes along those lines of someone taking and not reciprocating as much as I’d like them to. Must be a pretty strong topic with me! 🙂
Well, I recorded this just last night, so you see I’m back to health again. I actually recorded 8 total songs last night! Hey, if you’re on a roll, don’t stop it.
If you really like this song, and I think you will, you can download the original version on iTunes! That’s right- just search my name, the name of the album (What About Today?), or the name of the song and you can get it for only 99 cents!
Welcome to your Super Bowl Sunday edition of The Laptop Sessions acoustic cover songs music video blog! As a quick note on the Super Bowl, I’m a Jets “fan”, so even though this concerns two northeast teams, I really don’t care who wins. On top of that, I’m a baseball fan, so hearing that the Mets signed Johan Santana, it already feels like a win.
On to today’s acoustic cover song:
I’ve said it before, but Gene Clark is in the running for best songwriter of all time. Those know know Gene’s music share my admiration of it, and even though finding someone who’s even HEARD of him is few and far between, I know this acoustic cover version of “Dark of My Moon” will make a lot of fans very happy.
“Dark of My Moon” and is an “unreleased” song that was formally released only as an acoustic demo a few years ago (long after Gene passed away). This has been a favorite of everyone in my family since we first heard it and I’m proud to bring it to the Laptop Sessions music blog.
This literally took me 30 takes to do. This is a very powerful song and I needed to do it right. I found that the more I played it, the harder it became to sing. But, after plenty of loud obscenities, I finally got the perfect take, which I present to you today.
Listen to the words of this song and listen to how the music rises and falls with the emotions. Not all of Gene Clark’s songs were this slow and sad-sounding, but most of them had this hint of melancholy to them. Even in a fast-paced song like “Feel A Whole Lot Better”, Gene would put this sad tinge on the lyrics. But, what’s interesting about “Feel A Whole Lot Better” is how he says, “I’ll probably feel a whole lot better when you’re gone.” He doesn’t even know for sure! I think that extra dimension to Gene Clark’s lyrics is what made him so great. He had a way with words and you could tell he looked up to guys like Bob Dylan. For “Dark of My Moon”, you can tell it’s a very personal song. Lines like, “That’s the tenth time that you went and then came back,” make the listener realize that he’s talking about something (and someone) very specific. On songs like that, I usually choose not to do a cover version. But, “Dark of My Moon” is such a great song, I just couldn’t help it. The way Gene Clark sings in the rough demo version is just perfectly suited to the content of the song. This is only the first of many solo Gene Clark cover songs to come here on the video blog (not to mention those he did with the Byrds), so I hope everyone enjoys it!
Stay tuned as the Laptop Session a day in 2008 “keeps burnin'”! (to quote another great Gene Clark song)
