Sit down at your piano without any ideas. Start with Bennie and the Jets (or this Ben Folds song, doesn’t matter either way), then, casually glance at a tweet that places the hint of The Simpsons’ fake Michael Jackson “Lisa it’s your birthday” song in your head. Make up words that kinda hopefully sound cool and maybe mean something to someone. Finish writing and recording the whole thing before you notice any similarities in the melody to The Simpsons’ song. Finish with a polyphonic slow build to give the illusion of substance. Realize there are only four songs left and freak out. Read the rest of this entry »
Archives for category: upbeat
The last song that Steve wrote was very, very much out of the element of the 52sp. With little to no feedback on it, Steve has assumed that he should stick to the campfire songs. With a new recording rig, a new software setup and an urge to move to a warm country, here is song 47. Which, incidentally, means there are only 5 songs left. Oh, 6 if you count the infamous (and still absent) song 28. “Hello? Is anybody out there?” Read the rest of this entry »
For starters, we didn’t forget about the song, or release it late by accident. There is only one day, ever, that we can release a song at 11:11am on 11/11/11, and so I did it. Steve here. I am trying to make a new exclamation popular. If you are describing something very excitedly, say, “Sweet Doucet! That was something!”. And, in the case of this song, “Sweet Doucet! I have no idea what I just did!”. It is unlike anything else I have recorded. It is not a campfire song. In a recent e-mail, Chris Tindal called it “redicatastic”. I think that about sums it up. Read the rest of this entry »
This is our 40th song, and in our humble opinions, there have been a few really good ones. We’re probably at a 10%-20% success rate, and only a 10%-20% abysmal failure rate, which is pretty good. However, for many people we talk to, Elizabeth is still the best song we’ve put out. And that’s kinda annoying, because it was song number 4. The thing about Elizabeth, you will remember, is that it’s a “hate song,” which people seemed to like. So, in a blatant attempt to try and build on that success, here is another song with the word “hate” in the chorus. We hope it will become your second favourite song, so that we can feel like we didn’t peak in January. Read the rest of this entry »
This morning’s song is posted slightly early as a favour to our friend and fan John (of Amber Kills, check them out), who writes, “look im in work early and bored, gimme the song.” It was also recorded with John in mind, since, after song 37, he wrote to say “I listened to the song today. Just letting you know, get your shit together. Get organized down there. At least throw a fucking harmonica into it. Show me that you give a shit.” He’s a good friend. So, as usual we have no idea if you’ll like this week’s song, but hopefully you can at least tell that we care. Read the rest of this entry »
The last two 52sp songs have been sappy, so after being energized by the absolutely spectacular electric storm that swept through as I was in Toronto yesterday, here is a more upbeat tune. If you have ever experienced within days of each other both a severe lack of sleep as well as the ability to relentlessly sleep all of the time, you may be able to relate to the lyrics. If not, you may find your head bobbing in time to the quick offbeats or the power guitar chorus. And if all that fails, set this tune as your morning alarm. It won’t let you down.
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If we were all to get together and decide on one thing that 52 song project has not had enough of, I’m pretty sure we would all simultaneously blurt out “cocky swagger.” Cocky swagger is what makes music groove, makes it fun to dance to, and is also one of the leading causes of teen pregnancy. So here, in the rushed and rough fashion that has become our custom over these past few weeks, is an attempt to remedy that situation. (And if you’re here looking for information about the Buffy episode of the same name, I’m sorry, all they have in common is music.) Read the rest of this entry »
Every week we try to put a clever short blurb about the song here without giving away too much that we want to talk about in the “discussion” part below. The problem is, I don’t have a lot to say about this. I don’t know what this sounds like or is influenced by (aside from an obvious lyrical proximity to Bob Dylan), so I’ll let you work that out on your own. Heck, the real point of this text is just to fill space beside the illustration anyway. (Look! It’s a bell!) Read the rest of this entry »
Jetlag + missing friends overseas + Bulgaria + experiential education + true love + dancing at weddings + thinking about how we treat our health + pizza + memories that are so good they hurt + the ability to travel long distances in short periods of time + people that, even though you might see them once every few years, fit right back into your life + memories that are so bad they hurt + staying up too late when you should be keeping someone warm + lack of oxygen but abundance of radiation on airplanes + songwriting + 2 hours = Twist.
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Today is Canada Day! Yay! Happy Canada Day, everybody! On this special occasion, we’re very happy to present a song about… ourselves! Because we forgot it was Canada Day when we were working on the song this week! And instead we remembered that this week is actually the halfway mark in our 52 song project! And we got excited about it and wanted to use a lot of exclamation marks! Like MAD Magazine! We’ll stop doing that if you keep reading after the song, we promise! Also, Claire heard our song was called Halfway there, and she decided to draw a Halfway pear! Because she’s so punny! Read the rest of this entry »
