Big country

This song has been stuck in my head for days. It is so good. The lyrics kill me. Please consider how heartbreaking:

I've never seen you look like this without a reason,
Another promise fallen through, another season passes by you.
I never took the smile away from anybody's face,
And that's a desperate way to look for someone who is still a child.

And in a big country, dreams stay with you,
Like a lover's voice, fires the mountainside..
Stay alive..

(I thought that pain and truth were things that really mattered
But you can't stay here when every single hope you had shattered)

I'm not expecting to grow flowers in the desert,
But I can live and breathe and see the sun in wintertime..

So take that look out of here, it doesn't fit you.
Because it's happened doesn't mean you've been discarded.
Pull up your head off the floor, come up screaming.
Cry out for everything you ever might have wanted.
I thought that pain and truth were things that really mattered
But you can't stay here when every single hope you had shattered.

I'm not expecting to grow flowers in the desert,
But I can live and breathe and see the sun in wintertime..

So nice, I did it twice.

Remember when I told you about how the power of laziness caused me to both record demos and videos at the same time? Well, what you didn't know is that I recorded more than one song. This song has been stuck in my head recently, mostly because it's called Ohio and with the elections coming up, there's been a lot of talk about Ohio. I actually wouldn't be surprised if I wrote the first part of this song near an election. Maybe eight years ago? It took me that long to finish this song.

The first draft of this song had a lot more city names, like I was trying to fit in everywhere that I've been because I have been many places. But I think you get the idea. It's less about where I've been and more about where I ended up.

If you watch carefully, you can see that I almost fall over at one point but keep going like a champ. Also, I like how the room is in total disarray because we had just painted it. Maybe next time, a little more attention to detail will be paid. I'm not wearing shoes either. That's unusual.

Fresh for the internetz

Hey folks. I've been recording demos so that myspace can have some fresh material. I decided to record vocals and guitar at the same time, mostly so that I don't have to use a metronome. That's how I use laziness for innovation. But wait, I took it one step further and decided to also record a video at the same time so I wouldn't have to do that later and the sound would match up perfectly. My laziness is your reward. Please check out the new (and by new I mean to say that I wrote it years ago and am just introducing it now) song, For The Greater Good.


(I'm such a Mac commercial, aren't I? Recording songs to Garage Band, downloading video, splicing it together in iMovie, uploading it to YouTube. )

Also, if you are newer to The Heated, you may not be aware of my video for The Current Or The Undertow? You can find this song on my self-released e.p. The owl stays on my desk. I like keeping him around and asking him questions like, "Owlie, do you think I'm so, so pretty?" and he nods and nods.

My precious time

My music buying streak is back on. Someone gave me a gift certificate which I managed to spend in about three minutes. I did purchase one song a few days before the gift certificate appeared. It's really a guilty pleasure that I don't talk about often but I have a thing for R&B ballads (think Mariah Carey's We Belong Together) and so I bought Leona Lewis, Bleeding Love. Man, that ending when she holds that note out... sigh. The art of heartbreak.

Other singles I purchased:
Lesley Gore. You Don't Own Me*
The Shirelle's, Will You Love Me Tomorrow?

I bought a few albums too. Let's start with The Finches, Human Like A House. Sometimes other people's music fills me with jealousy and thoughts of "why don't I write songs like that?". This is one of those albums. Hopefully I'll learn a thing or two from repeated obsessive listening. I also picked up Bob Dylan's, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. Mostly I got this album so I could listen to Don't Think Twice, It's Alright. Sometimes the harmonica gets on my damn nerves but every musician should have some Dylan in there.

Next up is The Dodos with Visiter. This album is weird. I think it's going to take a few listens for me to settle in with it. It's got a bit of a psychedelic folk thing going (are we calling it freak folk?) and I'm not generally into that kind of thing but I find myself drawn to their music nonetheless. It was recorded brilliantly. To round everything out, I got The Killers, Sam's Town. So far, I'm really impressed actually. I mean, there's this ridiculous bravado and please get off Springsteen's jock but I'm also really drawn to their weird bombast and Springsteen is awesome so...



*fun fact: Lesley Gore is my people (lesbian, not Mexican). She also sang It's My Party so you know, maybe it was more about Judy than Johnny.