As Happy As You Make Me: Pearl Anniversary

tl;dr: three links at the bottom to different versions of a song celebrating its 30th birthday.

One of the main things I've been doing in this blog, other than posting NaPoWriMo poems before I mostly took those to Twitter, is marking anniversaries of my songs that I particularly like and/or are particularly meaningful. For instance, I posted about the 20th anniversary of Wrong Place, Wrong Time, the 25th anniversaries of If I Can't Be and Down from the Skies, the 30th anniversary of Watching Rainbows, and not-round number anniversaries of other songs.

It's been a few years, but I'd like to mark a 30th anniversary of one of my personal favorites, As Happy As You Make Me, written 30 years ago today (according to my notes). I don't remember a whole lot about writing it--I wrote it while on a family vacation in the UK, about the on-again/off-again college girlfriend and original muse I've mentioned here a few times, just as we were ramping up to embark on our longest "on again" stretch (at least officially). This was easily the most challenging original for me to play on the guitar, which I still wasn't really any good at. But Original Muse was very encouraging, and we used to call it "The Spider Song" since my fingers moving around the frets reminded her of a spider walking. I thought I might have the band learn it, but it really wasn't right for them and then I wrote a more suitable song about Original Muse, and that was that. It was in my regular rotation when I'd sit outside my dorm room and play, but I never did the song with any of the bands I've been in, nor was it really an option for any of them. As a result, unlike Down from the Skies or Another Margarita or Solitaire, there aren't a string of recordings of it down through the years.

But as years passed, I've appreciated the song more. It waited until 2009's The Cheese Stands Alone for a Gedankenband version, and while recording it I realized it was a much better song than I remembered. When seriously reconnecting with Original Muse several years ago, The Spider Song was one of her first requests when we were hanging around with a guitar together.  It has worked its way into being something I consider one of my very favorite originals, and trying to be objective about it, likely one of my best. What that says about how my craftsmanship has or hasn't progressed in 30 years is a different topic.

So! 3 versions of "The Spider Song" for you:
As Happy As You Make Me (link to Bandcamp site for The Cheese Stands Alone version)
As Happy As You Make Me (30th anniversary rerecorded unplugged version)
As Happy As You Make Me (early stripped down demo/experimental version for The Cheese Stands Alone)

My Decade in Songwriting

Well, it's a time for decadal retrospectives, and I'm no less vulnerable to those than anyone else.

If you're a regular reader of this blog* you probably know that I've been recording music for quite some time with various bands (both actual and virtual). My music with the Gedankenband can be found on Bandcamp and on Spotify.  I've/we've released an album and several EPs in the decade 2010-2019, and I've made a Spotify playlist with the Gedankenband songs that have gotten the most play** over the decade.  But here I wanted to focus on the songs I've written in the decade rather than those released, since a lot of what is on those releases was written in previous decades.

By my count I've got just shy of 50 songs that I wrote in full or in part during the decade. Not all of them are finished, whether they're lyrics but no music or a verse and a half but no chorus, but 47 are close enough to done that I have recorded a version if only for myself.  Of those, 21 have been recorded in a Gedankenband version, though only 12 can be found on Spotify. The others are mostly songs that have been recorded and are waiting for another album/EP release, though a few might not make it out for other reasons.

The remaining 25 are a mix of goofy experiments, songs recorded for friends, and songs that I recorded for myself. Some of them will no doubt make it onto the next album/EP. Some of them will never see the light of day (and that's OK). One of them was written for a terminally ill friend and shared with her before she passed away, I'm not sure what to do with that one.  However, many of them have already appeared on this very blog.

So, for the curious and as a companion to the Spotify list of Gedankenband recordings of 2010s songs, here's a list of the songs that have been released but aren't on Spotify and/or songs that are only found on this blog. I'll link to both the blog post about them (if there is one) and directly link to the file as well. Since some of the older links from the blog posts are broken, the best way to get to the songs themselves are probably the file links below...

As always, enjoy or don't enjoy, it's your call.

I Get The Grants (2011) (file)
Solitaire: New Deal (2011) (file)
Liara (2012) (Bandcamp site) [Gedankenband]
Marco Polo (2013) (Bandcamp site) [Gedankenband]
(I Couldn't) Keep Taylor Swift Happy (2013) (file)
I'll Never Be (2014) (file)
The MANTIS Song (2015) (file) [Gedankenband]
Song for Sandra, Sort of (2016) (file)
Test Me, Schaller (2016) (file)
Hashtag Leave Me Alone (2017) (file)
Pluto Protest Song (2018) (file)
Canon Romance (2019) (file)

While I'm at it, and repeating what's above:
Complementary Spotify playlist of the Gedankenband songs written in the 2010s
Complementary Spotify playlist of the most popular Gedankenband songs during the 2010s




*which I think accounts for...nobody?
**which isn't that much, really, but I am grateful for all my listeners. :)