FAWM post #7: Collab weekend

A note on collaboration. I have not developed any sort of collaborative skill up to this point. None. You may recall that one thing I loved about guitar was that I could be a one-woman band - no need for other musicians.

So, yep, I'm a collaboration newbie. But I have learned to play well with others since I started learning guitar all those years ago, and I did okay as a collaborator this weekend (if I may say so myself).

Saturday I met up with Zach and we did some jamming. This is what we came up with:



I guess we're calling it "Irish Platypus," because we couldn't think of a better name. I do believe we're taking suggestions, though. We thought there might be lyrics, but we didn't write any. So far I have found that writing lyrics with other people to be an extremely awkward experience. Writing music, pretty okay. Writing words with someone else terrifies the living snot out of me.

But me and Michael wrote a song today with words. It was good. It sprang up out of an idea I was incubating. At first I thought this might be cheating, in terms of collaborating, but I now think that it probably helps to come to a collab session with a few ideas in mind. I hope you'll get to hear our sweet song soon, but I also hope that the poor guy isn't driving himself crazy on the other side of this small town trying to do schoolwork, fix up the recording, and throw on a mandolin solo. Cripes. No one needs that kind of stress.


Anyway, I also just wrote this puppy... partially for the occasion (it is, after all, Valentine's Day as of this writing). Title: "The Five Stages of Infatuation"




I'm a little nervous about it. I may end up pulling it, honestly. I can't quite stick my finger on why it makes me so nervous (possibly sleep-deprivation as well as simply being the worrier that I am), so until I can, I'll just... leave it. It's like the line in the Automatic Toilet Song where I claim that the toilet is demon-possessed. I don't exactly feel 100% comfy with it. There are people in the world who really did not appreciate that line. But... I don't know, I can't please everyone when it comes down to it.

This song is really intended as a caricature and a satire of what really happens in the pursuit of romance - I guess I just don't want someone running off with it thinking that I glorified jealousy and things like that. 'Cause obviously, I don't condone stuff like that. I want to lift people up. I guess my hope is that this song helps to entertain, and make light of some of the normal and healthy aspects about being single, but maybe also help reveal how insane it is to obsess about stuff like this.

Well, whatever. I don't think I have any more time today to devote to worrying about it, so you let me know if I'm crazy or not. Okay?