A Song Each Day

Songwriter Johnny Massey has decided to complete a project, but his will be shorter than usual: he’ll be doing 7 songs in 7 days. His project will start on Jan 3, 2010!

In advance of his start, here is a bit about Johnny:

Like many kids from small towns, sports played an important role in the development of Johnny Massey. A superstar from a young age in both football and baseball, he seemed destined to come crashing out of the Mississippi Delta and into a full ride at a top notch university. But by the time he reached college his interests had changed and he found himself at a crossroads.

Art had always been a major part of Johnny’s life, but the music bug didn’t bite until his freshman year in college when his parents gave him his first guitar. Soon, every bit of spare time that had been taken up with sports was converted into creating chord progressions, lyrics, and eventually writing full length songs. His love for classic rock gave way to an obsession with Pavement and Silver Jews, and eventually Johnny rediscovered his musical and cultural roots by immersing himself in the blues.

Fast forward 12 years and Johnny lives outside of Atlanta with his wife, two dogs and a recording studio in the basement. He spends his days as the VP of Marketing for a custom carpet manufacturer, but at night he immerses himself in writing and recording songs. He also runs a web design/graphics company called Massey Entertainment and a small digital independent record label under the name ME Records. Johnny has been in several bands over the years but more recently he can be heard playing guitar and singing with Delta Company, as well as Capture Squad, his solo project featuring a revolving group of musicians from Atlanta/MS Delta. Capture Squad’s new album, “Mineral Row”, was released in early December 2009 and can be streamed and downloaded for free from www.masseyentertainment.com

What can I say? Doing 30 songs in 30 days is harder than it looks, and I know first-hand.

Andy King cranked out 19 songs in just over 20 days, and the quality of those tunes is exceptional. But alas, Mr. King was struck with a bit of the ol’ writer’s block at an oh-so-inopportune time, and thus fell 11 songs short of his goal. Shit happens!

Anyway, we’ll do the customary wrap-up post shortly and also post all of his songs in one location on the “previous artists” page.

ASongEachDay.com won’t see much action for the rest of the year, but I’m pleased that another songwriter has decided to have a go at it. Though his busy life (and husbandly responsibilities) will only permit him a shorter run, songwriter Johnny Massey will do a 7 Songs in 7 Days project beginning just after the new year. More on him soon!

Once he is done, we will once again need someone to take on the project – any takers??

Beginning Monday, November 16, Atlanta-based musician and songwriter Andy King will begin his daily song project. I know first hand from having been Andy’s neighbor a couple of years back that he is a very prolific songwriter (especially around 3am it seemed…), and I can’t wait to hear what he pulls together here. In fact, as I’ve told Andy on many occasions, the only thing that kept me from calling the cops during his 3am sessions was that the music that woke me up was never bad.

So be cure to check out the “Current Artist” tab up top for more info about Andy, and you can also catch up on past projects by clicking “Previous Artists.”

Thanks!

I am very excited to announce that my good friend Eric Balint has decided that he’s brave enough to take on the project. He will begin posting songs in the next couple of days, and will wrap it up in early November.

Eric and I played together off-and-on for a little less than a year back in ‘03; we recorded around a dozen songs together, but we just couldn’t seem to get a solid band together at the time. Laziness took its toll and we ultimately just scrapped the project; I still have the recordings we did, and I’m actually more proud of those songs than most others I did in that period of my life!

If you want to hear some of Eric’s past work, check out his recordings as The Cleaner Learning Center here: http://www.myspace.com/thecleanerlearningcenter

Here is Song #30 – Stream it by clicking the little PLAY button, or download it by right-clicking the title:

To quote the immortal words of one Clark W. Griswold, “Hallelujah, and holy shit.” Here I am at the very end of my 30-day project, and I must admit that I am terribly relieved. It has been a boatload of fun and a huge challenge, but I definitely feel that I have grown as a songwriter and I have allowed myself to step outside of my usual comfort zone with many of the tunes. That said, I’ll also very much enjoy having my spare time back to relax and do real human things. I’ll post this song today, and then probably relax for a day, and then come back and do a “wrap-up” post. It will include my thoughts on the whole project, some links, and of course: I’ll put all of the songs (along with some album artwork) into one big handy ZIP file for easy download. I’ll also discuss how the project will move forward without me!

So, the song. This tune was a tone of fun to record, and is definitely a sound that I’m not usually doing. You’ll just have to listen to it!

Instruments used:
Acoustic guitar (Seagull)
Drums
Electric guitar (Telecaster)
Electric bass (Fender Jazz)
Tambourine
Vocals

Lyrics:
I can’t believe its finally over
I thought this month would never end
I can’t believe I’m finally finished
This project nearly did me in

Here is Song #29 – You can stream it by clicking the little PLAY button, or download it by right-clicking the title:

Today’s song is deliberately quiet. In fact, you might have to turn up your speakers if you care to hear all the details…you might even hear my cat and dog wrestling in the background. Poor cat.

There are only 3 chords in this whole song, and it weighs in at just over 2 minutes long. I decided to let the vocal melody and they lyrics drive this one, rather than instrumentation.

The lyrics are about how everyone should semi-regularly test their own boundaries, and shout in the face of their worst fears (literally or figuratively) as a way of overcoming them and removing oneself from all the bullshit out there. I’m not always as good about this as I should be, but I do try to shift my paradigm as often as possible without totally wrecking my life.

Instruments used:
Acoustic guitar (Stella)
Vocals

Lyrics:
Forget all that you grew up with
Give up everything you own
You’ll be a better person for it
Embrace the change you have made
Walk out onto the ledge and scream your name
Stare into the death and curse your pain
Then, and only the will you be free
You won’t ever miss who you were

Here is Song #28 – You can stream it by clicking the little PLAY button, or download it by right-clicking the title:

Booooooo Comcast! OK, my internet service is back up, but it is intermittent and I’m very irritated. But the good news is that A) I have 2 songs posting today, and B) We had a great time playing the Grant Park Festival yesterday. So YAY for that!

So, this is Saturday’s song, and I’m posting it on Sunday. Sorry dudes. Anyway, this song sprang from another old guitar part that I’ve had in my head for a long time. I’ve tried playing it (and recording it) a few times before, but never got it right and never wrote lyrics for it. So, like many of these other songs, it seemed a perfect candidate for this project. I stripped it down to some nice acoustic guitar and a couple of vocal tracks – as you may have noticed, I’ve favored that low-key sound for a few of the past songs here. Maybe I’m just in that kind of mood?

Once I recorded the guitar part, I wrote some lyrics and recorded the main vocal track pretty quickly. The song is about how much I enjoy my special ladyfriend kissing me goodbye on mornings when she has to get up earlier than I do, and how I then look forward to her kissing me goodnight later on that day. Sappy, I know. But hell, I just love knowing that she’s the first person I usually see in the morning and the last person I usually see at night. It’s nice.

I then did some harmony vocals and that was it.

Instruments used:
Acoustic guitar (Seagull)
Vocals

Lyrics:
When I hear her alarm
I slightly wake
And give her one last hug
Before we start our day
I look forward to her kiss goodbye, but only ’til night
All day long I wait
To get home to her
And lay down for the night
Hold onto her tightly
I look forward to her kiss goodnight, but only ’til day

I’m writing this post on my iPhone because my internet is out at home. Ugh. Anyway, I will post today’s song later if Comcast gets their act together before I have to leave to go play the Grant Park Festival. If not, I’ll post Sat and Sunday’s songs tomorrow from a freakin’ coffee shop if I have to!

Sorry dudes, I’ll make it up tomorrow…

Here is Song #27 – You can stream it by clicking the little PLAY button, or download it by right-clicking the title:

This track is much less of a song and more or an experiment. I know, that sounds scary and suggests that this will be crappy noise; its not noise, but it was definitely less of a structured ’song’ than usual.

Basically, I wanted to see if I could play a chord for every note of the scale, in a row, and make the transitions as such that it wouldn’t seem too jarring as I switched keys. So, I arranged all of the chords in a certain order, played them each for 16 beats, ending on A flat; then, I repeated the same progression backwards to make kind of a musical palindrome if you will. The song starts with A major, peaks with A flat major in the middle, and then ends back at A major.

Once I had recorded this progression on the guitar, I made a duplicate track and reversed the audio. The result is a kinda eerie mix – much like that little person that David Lynch had talking backwards in Twin Peaks. Anyway, I the recorded some banging sounds and mixed it down. When it was done, I noticed that you can hear my ladyfriend talking on the phone in the next room in some spots…I left that in there too.

Instruments used:
Acoustic guitar (Stella)
Drums

Lyrics:
NONE

Here is Song #26 – You can stream it by clicking the little PLAY button, or download it by right-clicking the title:

Holy crap, I couldn’t come up with anything decent last night. I was drawing a complete blank – no lyrics, no melodies, nothing! I really didn’t have any idea how I was going to pull out a new song, and was actually afraid I might have to miss a day for lack of inspiration.

After staring at my instruments for about 30 minutes, I decided to grab a beer and go out back with the dog. I sat down on the back deck, and immediately noticed 2 things: 1) the cicadas were making a ton of noise, ans 2) there was a near-constant series of fast lightning flashes in the sky. The lightning continued – with no thunder or rain – for about 30-45 minutes, during which time I was struck with inspiration. I went inside, grabbed one of my parlour guitars, and wrote some guitar parts outside under the lightning. The lyrics were descriptive of the scene, and they came quickly!

I went back inside and recorded the guitar parts, then overdubbed some little guitar jangles on top. I must say that the rhythm guitar part is a bit uneven, especially in the first verse; but I knew I was working with a potentially brief bit of inspiration and didn’t want to lose momentum by rerecording it. After that, I laid down three separate vocal tracks (one lead and two harmony), and finished it all off with a nice little melodica part.

I can’t believe how pleased I am with this song considering how uninspired I was an hour before I finished recording it! I’m chalking this one up to luck and a bit of mother nature’s influence.

Instruments used:
Acoustic guitar (Seagull)
Melodica
Vocals

Lyrics:
I could not be less inspired
Than I am tonight
My mind is as blank as a sheet
Not an idea in sight
I go outside for inspiration
Perhaps some mosquito bites
I see lightning in the distance
Lighting up the sky
And then it hits me like a punch in the face
Ideas are all around me now in the ether
All I have to do is reach out and take
What I need from what I have – it’s all right here