Feb 24, 2011

Baba O'Riley+Josh Niehaus=Baba O'Riginal!

Sometimes when you pick up a guitar it lets you know what it wants you to play. A few years ago, while I was traveling abroad without my guitar, I bought a cheap Hyundai guitar (that's right, as in the car maker), which turned out to have one, and only one, exceptional quality. It rattled and buzzed and fell out of tune, but for some mysterious reason it sounded great when I strummed a G chord. Now there is not a whole lot you can do with one chord, but when I added a very slight variation to the chord (G to Gsus) a familiar melody popped into my head. Although my version sounded nothing like the original, it became evident that my guitar wanted me to play The Who's Baba O'Riley

Video of Baba O'Riley. The audio has "migrated" a bit since the video was uploaded, but it still sounds sweet! 

Often referred to as 'Teenage Wasteland', Baba O'Riley is in my opinion one of the greatest rock songs of all time. Check out a live performance of it on youtube sometime if you need a pick-me-up. That being said, you might wonder why I would cover a song that I can't possibly make better. First, covering songs that are better than my own is one of the great privileges of being a performer! Second, without necessarily improving a song I can still put my own mark on it. For this cover my goal was to help the melody stand out a bit more on its own. By stripping away some of the trademark 'Who sounds' -the pounding piano, thrashing drums, wailing bass, screeching guitar, whirling synthesizer- and slowing it down, I came up with a nice acoustic rendition that emphasized Daltrey's soulful melody; perhaps not the best part of the song, but a great melody nonetheless and a part that is often overlooked (as is to be expected from a person standing next to Entwistle, Moon and Townshend).


One final interesting note about this project is that I finally learned the correct lyrics (I think, although there is no consensus online). I always thought the opening line was, "Out here in the fields, I fight for my meals". But I was "corrected" by a zealous 'Who fan' who told me it was, "I farm for my meals". So I went to the online lyric sites and found out that online lyric sites are fairly worthless. Most of them say 'fight', some say 'fought' and a few say 'farm'. After listening carefully to the studio recording, I was convinced that it was indeed 'farm'. So there you go, I hope you learned something (at the very least you learned my opinion :) And above all, I hope you like my cover of Baba O'Riley. Check out more covers and originals here!

Feb 9, 2011

Make It A Dream- Repost

Jesus, this project is taking forever! And speaking of J.C., he is the subject matter of the first song I am sending out to the world from my nearly finished project! 

Why Jesus? Aren’t you Jewish?  
I think that Jesus is one of the most powerful, if not the most powerful, passion-inciting figures in our world. You feel that Holy Spirit bubbling through you and you want to scream hallelujah, speak in tongues, pass-out, cleanse the Earth, purge the wicked... or so I’m told. But just because I don’t feel it, doesn’t mean that I don’t appreciate it. And so I wanted to create a story of a man, in this case a murderous sociopath who longs to win the affection of his love, his God, and prays that He will rid him of his lust for blood, or show him who to use it on! It’s a slightly unconventional love story, about the power of Christian love. 

As for me being Jewish, is it weird that I wrote this song? I don’t think so. I see it as the flip side of Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas”. In fact there are quite a few famous Jewish songwriters and performers who have taken on this very subject matter (through a variety of narratives), like Norman Greenbaum, Paul Simon, Neil Diamond, Barbara Streisand, Irving Berlin, Kenny G, Bob Dylan, Barry Manilow and Josh Niehaus. 

Listen to Make It A Dream :) 

A rave review! Thanks Auriemma!