FAWM: February Album Writing Month 2004

numero 3 - writers block (it's you) WMA file here
YEAH! Pro Tools practice
never used it before. come hear the fruits of my first play session...

i'm numbering them according to the order i started them... this one i started feb. 4, as i was sitting at the coffeehouse not really coming up with anything. with my limited time, i figure i better run with any idea that pops into my head, so i thought i'd write a song about feeling the FAWM pressure. since hopper had put up 5 or 6 songs by then, he made the subsubtitle. i thought i'd start it like a guy trying to write a tough love letter and not getting it done... then toward the end i'd shift to the fawm theme.



as it turned out, it was one-versed at first. didn't get back to it till a week later. i was imagining a very hopper-like vocal. ("and it's you...and it's you"... was sounding very like a bit from hopper's song "redline") but... i took a 2-day trip to anchorage (even less time for fawm), 14 hours on the road... and somebody played an old green day album. now the song is somewhere between solo hopper and green day ripoff. in my head, at least.

MUCH LATER...
so, it took me awhile to record this thing. in the meantime, i decided to ask my favourite late-night coffeehouse workers to participate... aaron, trista, and becca recorded some impromptu comments into my MiDi before i had ever played the song on a guitar. it was beautiful: as i walked into the coffeehouse to record their bits, i heard that they were playing a solo matt hopper bootleg on the stereo. so a tiny fragment of background hopper is in the demo... i may add a little more when i get more dextrous at the Pro Tools. there are a few things i still want to do, but i was at my Pro Tools limit for the evening. I'll eventually post a slightly more refined version.

i can post the version without the final F word, if that'd be better.

Writers block (it's you) {curse you, matt hopper}

another crumpled paper in the can
pretty soon (the sh) it's gonna hit the fan
start another letter just like the last 15 began
a whole world full of better things to do
and it's you...
and it's you...
that keeps me sitting here under duress
don't know what i'm trying to express
trying to milk some meaning out of so much emptiness
and it's true...
that it's you...
it's you that makes me sit here pen in hand

now i watch the empty hours go by
the clock won't even look me in the eye
all these allegations and i got no alibi
familiar feeling... bit off way too much to chew
and i knew...
and i knew...
that i'd end up locked into my chosen fate
buy another latte filled with love and hate
all i need is time time time, but this can't wait wait wait
and i knew...
and i knew...
i knew this wouldn't go down like i planned

i wish i had the goods to give i think to give is good
i'd like to find the words to write i would i would i would
i would write the perfect words if i could if i could if i could

i walked myself in here without a qualm
but i can read the future in my sweaty palm
another crumpled page, another night spent on the fawm
and it's you...
and it's you...
and it's you...
and it's you...