I'll Be Down In Just About A Minute

Happy 2024

Sitting at the kitchen table new year's morning finally opening Christmas presents. I've been recovering from an awful procedure to remove a mysterious mass from my nether regions, As this is written we are not sure if what remains of said mass will require any further treatment or if I will be be ambling cancer-free into the future. This entire process has been painful and upsetting. We're hoping the outcome is on the benign side of things. 

This scare has prompted me to restart my "Every Song" blog. After re-reading what I'd written before I've decided to start again, going through each song on each album I've recorded over the years and explaining myself. Again, as I'm writing this we don't know the surgery to remove the tumor has removed the threat of a continuing battle with cancer. I've always promised myself that I was going to do this project and today is a good day to get it going (again). I'd already started this years ago but after reading it I've decided to scrap the whole thing and start again. After letting it stew for a few years, always intending to get back to it, I finally realized that I didn't particularly like it. Too much "blah blah blah" and not enough "hey nonny nonny" So this is the real one. Every Song Again. In a few years I'll dump this and start Every Song Again Again.  Ignore the other if you come across it. Or not. "Do what you want" as someone said at some point somewhere. Not me, though, unless I did. And I very well may have.

There's 6 collections out there right now in some form: Won Out (1979), Le Bonx (1980), FSGBOC (1983) Rodent To Rodent (1984) Winter Comes and Goes (2009) and Grimace (2014). The plan is to do a separate entry for each song in the order that they appear on each album. What the song's about, why the song exists, what inspired the song, and other stuff. I'm not going to stick to a particular formula - each entry will exist it a world of its own. Some will address inspiration, others will look at the recording process, some will be oddly significant semi-related facts and/or fiction and some will be just nonsense. Just like real life. I'll probably talk about my writing process, who or what inspires me and go on and on about musical heroes past, present, famous, unknown, real and imagined. It'll all depend on how I'm feeling at the time, how much I want to reveal and what time it is.  I'll probably include the lyrics and maybe a link to the song itself. Some non-album songs from the same period that were left off, ignored or forgotten about will pop up along with pictures, drawings, graphs and charts that explain everything or nothing.

I'll get going on this tomorrow because of my traditional tradition of "sleep all day on January 1st" traditional tradition, which is a tradition of mine. Did I mention tradition? I am tradition-bound to uphold my tradition. So, until tomorrow, igloo to you!

Final thought: I'm not a fan of the band Counting Crows but there are several of their songs I don't mind and a couple I actually like. The past few days their song "Long December" has lodged itself in the music part of my brain and I'm finding it oddly, poetically descriptive of my current thoughts and situation. "A long December and there's reason to believe maybe this year will be better than the last. I can't remember the last thing you said as you were leaving, now the days go by so fast" and "The smell of hospitals in winter and the feeling that it's all a lot of oysters and no pearls. All at once you look across a crowded room to see the way that light attaches to a girl" The very last line brings back the memory of lying there, uncomfortable and cold, watching a cute nurse clickity-clackiting information into the computer near my bed.