8/18/09 - “Quit Waking Me Up”

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This song is pretty self-explanatory. I wrote the “lead” guitar part while sitting at work one day and threw in this stereotypical blues chord progression this evening.

8/10/09 - “Tutorial” (aka, “How to Make Enemies and Irritate People”)

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This song has words but I wasn’t too happy with how they turned out. They probably weren’t goofy enough or distorted enough for me. Maybe I’ll record them at some point but for now I like this as an instrumental. Writing words is hard work. I respect folks who can do it.

EDIT: So I re-recorded some of the words and I’m fairly happy with them now. I also re-mixed the song and added a subtitle. It’s the name of a Screeching Weasel album released in 1993 with Green Day’s Mike Dirnt on bass.

8/6/09 - “Tiny Snowflakes”

I’ve had this piece of music floating around for a couple of years. Never really had anywhere to put it. This is as good a place as any. It sounds a LOT like a Deerhoof song, though I’m not sure which one. I mean, it sounds almost exactly like a Deerhoof song. If you can tell me which one, you win a prize. Their song is much better than mine.

8/5/09 - “Sheedy”

Here we go again in ‘83.
Seattle kids playing games in Sunnyvale.
Here we go again in ‘85.
I knew pixie sticks and combat boots were cool.
Ally, you made me wish I was David Lightman.
Ally, you made me wish I was a robot.
Which brings us to 1986.
11 million dollars on the loose.
But it stole your van and your heart.
“Who’s Johnny?” she said as she smiled.
Here we go again in ‘83.
Seattle kids playing games with Joshua.

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I re-wrote “Anne Hathaway” today and I like it. But it’s no longer about Anne Hathaway. Now it’s about Ally Sheedy. I realized I had absolutely nothing to say about Anne Hathaway. Anyway, this is a power-pop song with Auto-Tune throughout, which makes it lyke soo ttly kewl d00d. Actually I do like this quite a bit. If you can name the three movies I’m referencing in this song you’ll win some sort of prize. Deal? Tweet your answers to @nicksdailysong. Tank yoo veddy much. If I get zero tweets back I’ll probably be sad. Just sayin’!

8/4/09 - “Rubberband Birds”

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I had this weird rhythm in my head earlier today at work and recorded it by basically leaving myself a voicemail message tapping on the desk. Tonight I came up with some random chords to go with the drum beat. This song is what it is. It never takes off, never develops, just kind of bounces back to where it started. Rubberband Birds.

7/31/09 - “Anne Hathaway”

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Here’s a song that’s loud for the sake of being loud and doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. It probably shouldn’t exist, but it does. I had planned on writing words since there’s nothing particularly useful about the music but I got lazy at the last minute. O noes! I promise the next daily song will have words. Clever words!

EDIT: Okay so I’m going to have to exercise a little QC here and make a few changes. I’ll re-upload the song tomorrow. For now, enjoy the McDonald’s Menu Song for a chance to WIN A MILLION DOLLARS.

7/30/09 - “Cat Man”

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I’ll be honest, I don’t like this one bit. Maybe you’ll find something of value in it, but I really considered not posting it. The original idea sounded pretty promising on the acoustic guitar. Tee-hee! I called the song Cat Man because it almost sounds like it could be a soundtrack to my cat Doc just walking around the house. In that case, this song rocks!

7/29/09 - “Boulevard”

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Wrote the main little guitar part last night and recorded the song during business hours. Pretty funny. I didn’t spend quite enough time on this and it doesn’t come across quite the way I intended, but I still dig it. It also uses the same chord structure as the two previous songs. I’m thinking I’ll do another similar song tomorrow. Hooray for music recycling!

7/28/09 - “20,000 Leagues”

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Another instrumental that likes to play around in the sandbox in 5/4 time. I started playing the chords to the chorus at some point this morning and thought it’d make a swell daily song. The “verse” just sort of worked itself out naturally, as did the lead-ish guitar parts over the chorus. I’m sure you’re just plum tickled. Oh and Kati came up with the name of the song which alllllmost ended up being “About a Gallon.” I’m thinking the next song I write will probably be in 4/4 throughout. Just for grins.

7/27/09 - “Conspiracy”

everywhere that you go, everywhere that i go
weakest link in the chain, change your privacy goal
you authenticate me, algorithm is flawed
old security fail, new security fail

international net - work of competing thieves
never fully aware of what the system needs
timing takeover tests to coincide with this
manipulation works best when everyone’s afraid

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This song came together pretty quickly. The basic guitar part had been floating around for a while,. I just went ahead and spent a few minutes mapping out a simple arrangement and added a couple of random chord changes in the middle. That’s usually how I write. I didn’t like the words or the vocal melody at all until I added a layer of distortion over them. Now it’s tolerable.