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.
