Bluebird Liquor

awhile back i mentioned i was turned on to these mp3 blogs, and i still am.. i like reading 'em, browsing idly. they're all a little different, with different focuses and such. anyways, Said the Gramophone had a little contest with some lyric writing and a Cat Power CD giveaway (or something, i apparently missed some of this).. and now they have a british ton of lyrics all around this one theme. some are funny, some are sad, some are just odd.. but i collected the four or five winners and one or two others in the list and made a song out of it.

Bluebird Liquor turned out to be (in emily's words) sorta tropical, sorta country. which doesn't sound that great at all, ha! but i like it. it freely mixes old folky bits with much more modern stuff, like swirling delays and variably filtered oscillators. or something.

i was re-reading old copies of the new yorker, drinking coffee and such, when i came across an article on jake leg, and the short and intense period of blues/country songs it inspired (close to twenty songs in three or fours years). so coming across this reminded me of that, and i jumped in. perhaps it'll be part of a canon.

in this case, i played everything on it. emily worked all day and then we ran errands and ate and went to bed, not a lot of time. it's got some acoustic guitars, banjo, accordion, mandolin, bass, drums, moog, birdsong... harmonica, and me singing a few times. i think that's it. one of the vocals in the outro has me singing through a cell phone, but the effect wasn't quite right.. oh well. i think you'll be able to pick that one out clearly.

oooh - i almost forgot. there are some really good lyrics in here (the motivation, no less). i don't think this one was a winner, but i like it a bunch:

"she sipped till she shimmered, till her soul fit to shine
and to wit whispered "hither" and collapsed into mine"

i love that.. there's also about 100 more on Said the Gramophone.