Song-A-Day 2016

Note: This post was written in 2019 and backdated to appear on the date the song was written. After an explosion of sleep-deprivation-driven production, I slept in on this first Saturday of Song-A-Day. I had a leisurely day, watched a movie, then headed into the studio. The positive response from I Get No Sleep had me in a really good mood, and that comes across in this track. I wanted to use more of the hardware synths I had in the studio, and decided to avoid using any loops or soft-synths, just as an exercise. I did end up using … Continue reading

Note: This post was written in 2019 and backdated to appear on the date the song was written. It’s finally Friday. The company I worked for closed on Fridays at 12:45, so I had an entire afternoon of bonus time for this song. Unfortunately, I had also already planned to have dinner with a friend that evening in Houston, 90 miles away. Each of the four previous songs had taken me right up until almost midnight to record, so I was getting maybe 5-6 hours of sleep a night, at most. Normally, it was less than that, and I was … Continue reading

Note: This post was written in 2019 and backdated to appear on the date the song was written. This is a song for which I avoid discussing the meaning of the lyrics, not because they’re overly personal or sensitive, but because I think they’re more powerful when the listener is able to develop a personal version. I’m rarely as veiled or subtle as I think I am, but I’ve heard some very interesting and divergent interpretations, so I’ll leave this one up to you. This track also ended up on the 42403 album, at the strong request of my friend … Continue reading

A month or so prior to writing this track, I had become fascinated with “numbers stations.” In short, these are mysterious, high-power radio stations that broadcast nothing but seemingly random strings of numbers, words, backwards music, and other strange sounds. While none have been formally claimed, nearly all of them are considered to be run by various countries to send coded messages to spies embedded in hostile territory. They are virtually uncrackable and untraceable, and still operate to this day. All a spy needs is a radio and the knowledge required to decipher the code. After watching this Dark5 video … Continue reading

Note: This post was written in 2019 and backdated to appear on the date the song was written. Day two. Tuesday. I had received some positive reinforcement for the previous day’s song, and was eager to get through the workday to get home and write something new. I’d caught the bug. In 2016, I was still writing my lyrics out long-hand, so there are cross-outs, things I abandoned, verses out of order, and so on. It’s fun to see some of the things I didn’t do. For example, the first line on the page reads, “Pull back from the pixels … Continue reading