I initially recorded this song in my basement in Brooklyn (Underhill Downs) for the soundtrack of a student film that Zachary Gilman and Bernie Villeia were making about a young man's experience with a succession of dumb jobs. It was all acoustic guitar and vocals, no other instruments, and I only intended it as a demo to be re-recorded later. I also wrote a short song called Do What You Can and sent it off to them. They gave me a tiny donation for the demos but couldn't afford to have me re-record any of it, so I left it like that at the time, but I always envisioned a fuller arrangement. Coming back to it later, there was something special about those takes and I ended up using the original takes and just adding more orchestration. Leah Bartell had a string trio at the ready. They came to Notable (Dan Cantor's studio near Boston) and I kept running in and out of the control room changing the sheet music until everyone was getting confused trying to remember which version we had agreed on while trying to read this sheet music that had all these dull marks from erasing and rewriting with a dull pencil. There was thousands of dollars of gear in that studio, but no pencil sharpener.
Later, I threw a listening party for an early mix and Gaby Alter (GMinor7 to nerdcore fans) told me he didn't like how prominent and sort of bouncy/dorky the vibraphone part was, so Dan Cantor and I tried a bunch of different ideas for orchestration. We added electric guitar to the end of the song and we stumbled on that wonderful mellotron sound patch which added something really nice. Then we grabbed Jesse as he dropped off gear after a Jim's Big Ego gig and made him stay up late and throw down a bass part and we paid him with a signed baseball. But I can't remember whose signature because I know nothing about America's favorite pastime.
Although the song was originally commissioned for a student film and I was just trying to find something to fit the vibe, it of course ended up having some kind of subconscious meaning about my own life. I'd just broken up with someone after an eight-and-a-half year stint and was just stumbling around in a daze, trying to let go of all the expectations I had accumulated about how my life would turn out. Everything seemed like it was going to be markedly less awesome than I had hoped.
If you can relate to that attitude (it goes away eventually, I promise) then you might also relate to this:
You seem to have only two choices in such a mood.
1) Spend the rest of your life constantly being disappointed
or
2) Lower Your Bar.
- Aug 23 2009