“Let Me Wear Your Ring” is one of my favorites. It was written for daja to sing, and there she is singing it, so obviously that worked out.
It also features Anders (on the “marimba” setting!), the SR-16 drum machine, autoharp, and just a little bit of tin whistle.
New Wave bliss in two minutes or less. Served up winsome and bitter, just the way you like it.
This song, “221,” is actually about 10 years old (the lyrics, plus some simple mathematics, will tell you fun facts about me), and originally recorded on 4-track out at the farm.
It is a textbook example of how not to write a song — there is no chorus, and the verses don’t have a repeated line (in songwriting class, they would tell you that one or the other is necessary — that’s where you put the title!). In addition, the rhyme scheme changes every verse, while the chord progression remains absolutely the same throughout the entire song. It’s ridiculous!
It was always kind of an also-ran until a few days ago when I tried experimenting with sampling the autoharp with my Korg Electribe. What fun! And it allowed me to play around with various rhythms until I found one I liked. So the stacatto ‘harp is actually sampled — it’s easy to tell at the very end, when it’s played solo.
There are three other ‘harp tracks in here (all, of course, playing the exact same progression) — one clean, one distorted, and one comes from the origianal 4-track recording, which is overdubbed underneath this version and surfaces a couple of times, most notably in the second half of the bridge, where you can also hear a second drum machine playing out-of-sync.
Also appearing are a diatonic harmonica and a thumb piano, along with the to-be-expected Kawai and SR-16. Words are here.
This song is called “Fingers” and it is a very, very, very simple song which got much more complex when I wasn’t looking. (Much later, it got simple again.)
The first part of the song is autoharp and vocals (the chorus really shows of my spectacular single-octave range!) and the wee Concertmate 370. It took about ten minutes to write and record.
Then, months later, I tacked on all this other stuff at the end. This took forever. It includes the Kawasaki Disc Mixer (my least favorite keyboard — it’s the “trilly” one) and several other keyboards, and well as a banjo (I do not play the banjo).
EDIT. Okay, it’s now a year later and, you know, I just like the short version better. So I’ve put that one back up.
Words are here.