In 2005, I faced some serious decisions regarding treatment after learning that my Hodgkin’s Lymphoma had come back. It was hard to know what to do, because whichever option I chose came with some consequences. Ultimately I chose to undergo a stem cell transplant, which was a nasty affair with a tremendous affect on my emotional state as well as my body. Now a few years later and cancer free, this song seems to have creeped into my consciousness again. I decided to finally record a demo version this past Monday.

Along with the piano and voice parts, I recorded some background melodica and some kazoo parts reverb-ified.

Listen to “Happens In Stages”

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Happens in stages
Dog-eared pages
Two roads at your feet

Heaven and Earth
Or what it’s worth
You could take chances or time

Also recorded on Monday was a song called Little Black Boxes, inspired by The American Widow Project.

Inspired by The American Widow Project, I wrote lyrics to this song around Veteran’s Day in November of 2009 after this story on NPR caught my attention. The melody came a little bit later, and actually over time I wound up stripping down some of the other parts to keep this more straightforward.

Listen to “Little Black Boxes”

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Little black boxes
Stacks of letters I sent
White car in the driveway
Two men and a flag
Within “The Days Ahead”

And I try to smell him
But they washed all his clothes
And sealed them in plastic
In little black boxes
Within “The Days Ahead”

* “The Days Ahead” is the name of the 3 ring binder the U.S. Military gives to widows. The American Widow Project is on Twitter @americanwp

While setting up some mics with the piano lid open, I accidentally dropped the end of the mic cable on the soundboard. It wound up being the inspiration for this song.

I used a carpenter’s hammer against one of the bass strings, then plucked the upper melody with my fingers. The sustain pedal has to be held down, of course. Then I put some water in a wine glass and clanked it with a paint stirrer… and then of course there were tambourines and egg shakers… and then the singing of four part harmonies.

Listen to “Salt”

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When all the walls that you had built
Could not protect you from the guilt
The secrets hid behind the eyes
Were darker than your safest lies

And when they come, they pull you down
They crush the peace you thought you’d found

But we’re deciding who’s at fault
We stand the breeze and taste the salt
We’re deciding who’s at fault
We stand the breeze and taste the salt

Last week I had the pleasure of getting together with Mark Schwaber, who looks like he’ll be playing some stuff on some songs (Flowers On The Fire Escape, Fight Or Flight, Other States). He  brought a lot of ideas to the table. It was refreshing to hear these songs in a new light. We’re getting together again this evening, along with Greg Saulmon whose guitar stylings will be surely welcome. Greg has played along with me for my last couple of shows.

It’s been great for me to think about working with a  bunch of different musicians. One of the challenges, however (for them, mostly), is that I don’t really have many demos of most of my songs. So I setup the dining room last night and recorded a couple tunes so I can pass them around and see if anyone wants to play on them. Also it was my first foray into Garageband recording so I wanted to see if I could act like I knew what I was doing. I used some pretty shitty mics and mic stands and the cats were running around, so I did a few takes.

The Gatekeeper is a song I wrote last week. Not sure if it’ll be on the album, but here it is. I recorded this live while singing along to what I was playing.

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Fourth Floor is a Northernly song I’m hoping to convince Aric Bieganek and Rebekah Dutkiewicz to record with me. I recorded the piano track first, then put down the vocal track.

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You can read all about the process of starting the new record here.