
Colors of the Rainbow
by: Seth Freeman
uploaded: 02/22/2010
notes:
Song a Day! Sounds easy, right? (that's a joke)
But seriously, I'm actually one of those people that has always been prolific.
However, I usually don't write complete songs in one day. I'll write 40, 60, or
even 80 percent of a song, but 100 percent? not usually. I usually get lazy
after the first verse / chorus. And then, if I do write an entire song, I don't
usually record it "professionally" that same day. And I certainly don't share it
out on all the interwebs for everyone to critiquify ... certainly not that very
night!
The first year, I did it. That was 2008. Somehow my friend Chris' project just
hit me the right way at the right time (right between the eyes) and I was on it!
The second year, I attempted it. I did not even write a song every two days
that year. I was too caught up in other projects, most of them creative music
projects, so I was not complaining!
This year, I think I wrote a song a day for five or six days. I diligently
recorded and uploaded the first (or second) song, and then I got lazy. See, I
had been recording them while walking the dogs onto my super modern
digital answering machine from 1996. Let me explain ...
I am busy. Seriously busy. So busy that the folks at the local coffee shop
think I’ve been out of town for a month. So holed up that the doctor told me
I need to take vitamin D supplements! Too busy to listen to Jeff’s mp3’s!
Too busy to mix those Nadeya cowrites! Too busy to pay the gas bill! So
busy that my parents’ snide remark about how busy I am is actually dead-on
(and I’m not lying, mom and dad and dad)! So fucking busy that I just do not
have the time to check the grammar on this blog that nobody will ever read!
So busy that I will not even think twice about the fact that I just cursed and
my daughter’s preschool teacher might read it. So busy that I really don’t
care if other people who really are actually busy for real might judge me for
being a spoiled little whiny little primadonna.
So, I’m busy. Get it?
So I decided to write the songs while walking the dogs. This is a brilliant
idea! Way to go, me! If I walk the dogs by myself, without any other person
walking with me, without my cell phone glued to my ear, without my worries
about the world, my life, my family, etc., plaguing me, I actually can write a
song in 25 minutes while out on a stroll with my dogs. No joke. (I’m
bragging right now, for anybody still reading this boring-ass blog.) Yes, I’m
bragging, and I am making no bones about it – I love it! AND I love me for
loving it! (Now I’m bragging about bragging.)
Anyway, when I’m done walking the dogs, I do not have time to record the
music that I just wrote (because I’m busy, remember?) and if I don’t record it,
I will forget it, because my mind is just like that, see? I don’t know why, or I
do and I don’t want to tell you, or I’m saving it for another awesome blog!
So, to record it, I use my super-brilliant SMART-FONE. Right?
WRONG!
I do not have an iPhone, or a Blackberry, or anything remotely approximating
a PDA. For all my technical prowess (you can laugh, it's ok), I have not yet
fully realized my vision of having that super-specialized one-size-fits-all
super-device connected via satellite to my RAID-5 datastore backup cloud
spanning five galaxies. Instead, I have a cheap-ass flip-fone that I dropped
in the toilet two months ago so it is lacking about 95% of its original
functionality, which granted was pretty much a total laughingstock of a cell
phone in the first place.
Ok, so cool, now I have these five or so brilliant songs recorded into my
digital answering machine! What happens next? Read on, read on, …
In an attempt to reduce hum while recording a guitar track, I flipped the
switch for the lights circuit, and at the same time accidentally switched off
the circuit my answering machine was plugged into! No battery in the
machine. It’s digital. Two years less modern and there’d be a tape to
retrieve the data. Ouch. I'd say at least two songs are gone.
No big deal, right? There's a new song every day, at the very least, right?
True. However, it took the wind out of my sails a bit. Plus, I have been
spending the rest of my time either producing other artists, writing with
other writers, or flashing my hoo-ha on the corner to make a few bucks (ok
that last part is not true, but I’ve been tempted – haven’t we all? Work with
me here, people! Don’t make me feel even more ridiculous!).
Fast forward a couple weeks. Here I am, with at least a couple songs that I
really did write this month, finally ready to get over it and just post whatever
the heck I’ve got with no regard whatsoever to quality of song or recording. I
am ready to just give in.
So, I now present to you a song I recorded earlier in the month as a little
performance for my friend Dan, whose record I’m producing, at the start of
our session. I was just getting it down on tape before moving on to the next
thing.
On this particular dog walk, there was a surreal double rainbow stretched
across the sky and the LA River was raging as if it were the Rio Grande or the
Colorado. I was inspired. This song materialized out of thin air. I hope you
enjoy it as much as I have enjoyed the meandering soliloquy leading up to it.
Love, Seth
Tagses: (we can link these up later)
Link to the mp3 file:
Colors of the Rainbow
Link to this view of the song:
http://song-a-day.netscrap.com/songs/?scrap_id=1483&scrap_category=33