Avery Island (Cover)

I stumbled across this wonderful instrumental on Neutral Milk Hotel's Avery Island today, and came up with an idea.

I recorded the song onto Garageband by just playing it through the computer speakers, added some simple drums, and then sang some lyrics I had been using in a song that is kind of stuck.

Always believe, always believe in you.
I'll always believe in you;
Your sticks and your stones.

Always thinking, always thinking of you,
Always thinking of you like snow:
you come and you go.

• play
• pause
• min volume
• max volume

posted by Corduroy (6 comments total)

On second thought, as I'm listening to this again several hours later and wiser, the vocals are really somewhat weak and I should probably have taken a little more time in figuring out the melody exactly. I also want to do something more with the beat, I just don't know what. Perhaps there really should be no vocals, and just some more work on the instrumentals.
posted by Corduroy at 8:01 PM on June 19, 2008

And jeez, I just realized that the song after this one, Gardenhead/Leave Me Alone, uses the same trumpet line towards the end. Damn it, I give up.
posted by Corduroy at 12:17 AM on June 20, 2008

Aw, don't give up. It definitely benefits from the vocals.
posted by nthdegx at 2:25 AM on June 20, 2008

Heh, like nthdegx said, don't give up. This is actually a great idea. I've written some songs this way (although usually the song is playing in my head and I deconstruct it while coming up with mine, but sometimes I'll just play something on top of another song or sample and take it out of the mix later). I think this is a good start for something, so keep at it. You could also try reversing the recorded track from NMH and playing along/singing to that to see what happens. Or cutting up the melody so that it becomes another and playing to that. Just a thought.

If this experiment has helped you in moving the song along, then it's never a bad thing.
posted by sleepy pete at 10:32 AM on June 20, 2008

I've written some songs this way

Same here. Another thing I have done is that I try to figure out a song in the guitar and I end up with a riff that sounds nothing like the song I'm trying to learn, but becomes a song itself.

So yeah, great idea, keep playing with it. You'll get to something that satisfies you more.
posted by micayetoca at 8:51 AM on June 23, 2008

Thanks for the comments. I have to keep in mind what sleepy pete said in his last line. It's very true.
posted by Corduroy at 7:08 PM on June 23, 2008