Monday, July 29, 2013

Newish and Acoustic


Two songs today, the shorter of which needs a bit of context.

First, the other one: I Still Reckon

This was written a few years ago when I was feeling old and creaky. I'm planning a Gedankenband version at the next available opportunity.  It was probably inspired content-wise by a Weezer song, and the Shakira reference is certainly intentional.

Now, then. Back in college I wrote a song called Solitaire about the end of a recent relationship. Turns out it was one of my better songs from that time and the band really liked it. So it became the opener at most of our shows through the rest of 1990 and 1991. The next band I was in liked it too, so Jury Rig also played it. The band after that, Science Diet, was less enthusiastic, thinking it was rather negative. I recorded it for In-Jokes With Myself and then didn't really think about it.

The relevant ex-girlfriend and I stayed in touch and are quite good friends these days.  It turns out she likes the song, too. And while I was pretty worked up at the situation 20+ years ago, I no longer associated the song with the feelings that inspired it.  Nevertheless, I felt kind of bad about it. So I decided to write a short sequel to Solitaire. I've played around with that sort of thing before, having written a few other sequels (to songs like Love at First Sight and Sally's Sister) but never released them.

So here is the (very short) sequel to Solitaire: Solitaire: New Deal


Friday, July 19, 2013

Astropoetry: A bit of waving at Saturn (and Mercury)


I have a million things to do, but those can apparently wait a bit longer.  Inspired by Amee Hennig (aka Astropoet Amee), who's been collecting and posting contributed poems for today's "Wave at Saturn" event, I figured I'd collect some of the relevant poems I've written for National Poetry Writing Month in the past few years about the Saturn system, and a bonus one of Mercury for the concomitant "Wave at Mercury" event!

"In a field by Hook Mountain" (Saturn)
"You Exhale Ice" (Enceladus)
"Horseshoes but No Hand Grenades" (Janus/Epimetheus)
"Am I Not a Planet?" (Titan)
"Two Faced Orb" (Iapetus)

"An Alchemical Dream" (Mercury)