Jan 182011
 

I’m still not satisfied with the list of songs I have for the next album. I really feel as if I need a bunch of songs to choose from so I get it “right” (whatever that means) and therefore I just keep on writing.

I finished the first draft of this song recently after going back over some journal writing. I had written an entry about having a house full of kids after a visit from my son’s cousins and some neighborhood friends. There were kids everywhere in the house and so my journal entry was centered around having too many kids in our usually peaceful house and what they might do to destroy the place and my sanity.

This is a great ‘live’ song and works well to break up a set of more ‘serious’ songs. I always get tired of the singer-songwriter who has nothing but breakup songs or political songs or angst driven songs… You gotta laugh a little during a set.

So this is a video of the first performance of “Too Many Kids In This House”. I feel the lyrics still need a bit of tweaking and it might be a tad long winded, but the message gets delivered and the audience really connects so the elements are in place I just need to refine. This was performed at a friend’s birthday bash (slash) house concert and the crowd really got into it as did the kids that were there (as you’ll see).

“Too Many Kids In This House!”
performed 1/15/2011

Nov 062010
 

I’ve got just a couple of more songs to demo out before I start hacking away and formulating a working set list for the CD. As I was thinking about songs I’d like to still demo I thought about this little blues song that I perform every once in a while and said why not at least demo it and give it a chance to be on the CD. This is a song that I wrote ages ago, 1988 to be exact. Shoot, over 20 years ago! I wrote it about a roommate I had at the time who desperately wanted to play the guitar and write blues songs, but he was so bad at the guitar and could not sing on key to save his soul. But he had the attitude of a blues-man. He was a loner. He was not one to get “tied” to a woman. He traveled and had very few possessions. He just did not have the voice to yell at the world like a blues-man. His name was Earl. This is the song I wrote for him called “Blues for E”.

Let me know what you think!

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direct link: Blues for “E”

Blues For “E”

Babe I’m a loner
Don’t need love
Or that sentimental foolishness
I can’t rise above
I just play my guitar
And sing the blues
For a fool like me
For a fool like me

Well I ain’t got no worries on my mind
I just watch the world going by
And I take what I can find

Well you say you love me
That’s alright
But babe I’ll be travelin
I’m gone tonight
On the road with my guitar
Just singin the blues
For a fool like me
For a fool like me

Well now I don’t need a woman by my side
I put my stuff in an old knapsack
And I wait for a freight train to arrive

Babe I’m a loner
Don’t need love
Or that sentimental bullsheet
I can’t rise above
I just play my guitar
And sing the blues
For a fool like me
For a fool like me

Feb 282009
 

I was able to find a way to make a dynamic slide show from the shots I had taken of my son eating his cupcake. As I said in the post about the Cupcake Blues song, it was these shots that inspired me to write the song and not the other way around. Animoto.com is the site where I did this “video” and it seems like the presentation a matter of chance. I assume the software they use also analyzes the transients in the song’s wave file so that the images change with hit points.

It’s an interesting thought about adding images to song. Does it detract from the song? Is the viewer intent upon the images and not paying attention to the song?

Whatever the case – enjoy the video, you can never go wrong when you have such a cute subject.

- let me know what you think!!!

~dg~


Creative Commons License
Cupcake Blues ~ Video by Darryl Gregory is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Feb 202009
 

tain_cupcake1

the blues go with anything

The idea for this song came after doing a rapid fire photo session of my son eating a cupcake. I got the notion to do a video/slide-show of the shots with some original music. I had originally thought that the music should be more on the hard rock side, but the more I played with the lyrics the more bluesy it started to sound. I’ve discovered that you can make almost any lyric fit the blues, so…

I like the way the lyrics never really cross over to being really about a girl and really about an actual cupcake. Maybe this guy is talking about his girlfriend, but on the other hand maybe he’s really just hungry… who knows?

I wanted to make this a raw-sounding performance – acoustic guitar, harp, and knees. Not a lot of fancy stuff, just three guys sittin’ round jammin’, except I’m all three guys. One of these days I’ll get around to making the video and post it up. Enjoy! Please leave a comment, let others know and feel free to download to your iPod.

~dg~

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Cupcake Blues

I see you in the bakery
Where I get my coffee
Looking all delicious
You start talking to me
There’s no reason I can’t have you
I’m coming to your rescue
I’m taking you home with me
There’s nothing you can do
When I’m jonesin’ for some sugar for my sweet tooth

You’re my little cupcake
Sweet little cupcake
Fancy wrapping, chocolate icing
Sprinkles on top
You’re my little cupcake
Gonna get a toothache
When I take a big bite
You’re all over my mouth
C’mon baby let me have a lick
That ooey-gooey Devil’s Food gonna do the trick

And it’s my birthday
It’s my birthday
It’s my birthday
I’m gonna blow out the candles
And make a little wish
Peal off that wrapper
And put you on a dish

You’re my little cupcake
Sweet little cupcake
Fancy wrapping, chocolate icing
Sprinkles on top
You’re my little cupcake
Gonna get a toothache
When I take a big bite
You’re all over my mouth
C’mon baby let me have a lick
That ooey-gooey Devil’s Food gonna do the trick

© 2009 EmptyHead Musikwerks

 Posted by at 1:09 PM