Misty

September 11, 2010 1:53 PM

I recorded this for a dear old friend who'd requested it; it has myself playing a really trashy old guitar and my wheezy accordion and singing. Yes, it's senselessly sentimental, but there's something sweet about it.

This is a very nostalgic song for me, mostly because back in college our little group played it at almost every show. It always reminds me of good days and good friends. It's ridiculously sappy, but it'll never stop being a beautiful song to me, and for some reason I find the changes endlessly interesting no matter what instrument I play them on.

I'm working on a more fleshed-out version that's very different – piano and horns – but I'd promised my friend a while back that the next song I uploaded would be this, and this arrangement had occurred to me as an alternative setting. So the other day I sat down and threw it together just after I'd tracked the vocal for "Viper Mad" - probably two takes for each instrument, not very much honestly. Took maybe an hour, which is faster than I would have thought I could do this, but that's largely because I know this song like the back of my hand, having sung and performed it on and off for more than a decade.

I think the vocal's a little bit rough, mostly because I didn't have it in me quite as much as I should have after all that belting it out for the other song, but all in all I'm quite happy with this. The finished product reminds me almost of something you'd hear in a hip cosmopolitan film set in New York from the early 60s.

(Which might be ironic, because yes: that's a clip of Clint Eastwood, from that awful movie of his, right at the beginning. I just couldn't resist sticking that there.)

posted by koeselitz (3 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite

This is beautiful. I think the low-fi instruments you used help lend a sense of sincerity that really makes the song hit home. A person trying to sing this song to his lover isn't gonna have a lot of polish once he decides to do it.

I played this tune with our combo in high school and it's one of the few songs that stuck with me all this time later. The changes and that melody are just perfect. When it gets stuck in my head, I'm delighted.
posted by man vs sun at 7:02 AM on September 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


Sappy, but the sort of sap that turns into delicious maple syrup.
posted by Corduroy at 10:32 AM on September 16, 2010 [1 favorite]


I especially love the way the guitar sounds.
posted by Corduroy at 10:33 AM on September 16, 2010 [1 favorite]


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