Day 4: Codebreaker

It seems I'm establishing a habit of starting these entries with a description of the way I woke up. I don't know exactly why this is, but today's entry is no different: I woke up to a really strange sound, a sort of weird clockwork clicking noise, outside among the regular bird babble. I hopped out into the garden to see what was what, and discovered that said noise was emanating from a curious looking black bird with blue specks. I managed to record some of it.

That has nothing to do with anything really (I should really stick more closely to the remit of this blog)...

Today I recorded Codebreaker. It's sounding sweeeet! Aside from my voice the song consists of guitar, glockenspiel, a little metal bell, and a synth pad. I also got some lyrics for the Bo Diddley song, just the first few lines:

Low in the sky
Hung the eye
Of the Man in the Moon

And the sun that is there
When the moon is elsewhere
Will be here soon

Hmm, looking at it written down I'm not so sure. The first part makes it sound like the Man in the Moon's eye is actually hanging out... Back to the drawing board. I think I may need to go and do something outlandish, staying in all day isn't good for inspiring ideas.

Day 3: The unbearable eight-ness of being

The last thing I read last night was Derek Sivers' blog about Abraham Maslow's principles of Self-Actualisation. This morning I woke up with a sudden desire to set these guidelines to a bodhran/electric guitar Bo Diddley-type-thing. I got as far as recording the rhythm and a vague electric guitar part (whilst wearing a powder-blue fleece dressing gown, naturally), but the lyrics, as ever, were the hard part. As soon as I tried to turn Maslow's eight steps into a singable lyric the whole thing went distinctly New Kids on the Block (the block in this case being one that bordered Sesame Street), and I gave up on the idea. I think in my initial excitement I'd also overlooked just how wanky a song explaining Self Actualisation would Actually be. The Bo Diddley sound is definitely staying, but what to write about?

Seeking inspiration I set out to Oxfam on Kingsland Road (I should point out that Oxfams are not my first port of call for musical ideas - I had some books to get rid of). Whilst there I saw something that I've always been curious to see: an eight-track cartridge, several in fact, ranging from Glen Campbell to Buddy Holly, via the Osmonds (not to mention the extremely intriguing David Rose and his Orchestra, pictured above). If I believed in fate I might read something into the eight-ness of this discovery echoing Maslow's eight principles, but I don't and so I won't. I left Oxfam with Matthew Herbert's Plat du Jour, which I almost paid £12 for but a month ago - 99p! By the time I got home I'd had enough ideas to finish off the song I didn't finish yesterday, which was untitled and might now be called Codebreaker. I'll try and record it tomorrow. For the rest of today I re-recorded some guitar for Volcanoes. The Bo Diddley remains frustratingly nebulous.

I also started a proper pad to keep lyrics and song lists together, as it was all getting a bit out of hand paper-wise.