Magic the Music Box

I went over to Martin’s house and recorded a tune. I got it on the fifth take. I had a difficult time staying focused. On one hand I was trying to create beautiful music and on the other hand I was thinking about what I did the night before. It was almost as though I was dreaming. My mind was wondering and I had to repeatedly bring it back to the guitar and the next chord and the next line to be sung. I was being extraordinarily careful with the guitar. I was trying not to land on a wrong note and cause a buzz. The room was silent. I was tense, but trying to relax.

A song is a presentation. There are many factors that can alter one take from the next. I realized that every version I did was different in body and content. I added a line here took out a line there. It wasn’t my intention, but it was the result of wanting to survive the take. I was trying to get through the song with as few mistakes as possible. My changing the song as I went along was a masking agent for failure. I sometimes feel that’s what art is, the continuous process of hiding ones mistakes, altering, reconfiguring until your satisfied within yourself with your work.

Recording to me is synonymous to having a camera in my face for three minutes and for those three minutes I do my best to act like the camera is not there.

After my session I stopped at a hardware store to buy seven two by fours. I tossed them in my Honda four-door sedan. The back seat folds down and you’d be surprised how much wood you can fit in a Honda Accord. I’m building a landing for the entrance to my cabin.

The Honda has been good to me,. Yet, the other night I was ashamed of it. I was with a new friend, a person I didn’t know that well, and she dropped my off at my car. I’m not sure why I was ashamed. It’s a great car. It’s a 1993 white Honda Accord with one hundred and ninety-one thousand miles on it. It runs well. It has never left me stranded, not like my Mercedes, but there I was ashamed of it. I’m fine with it when I’m alone, but for some reason I was ashamed then. It was an odd feeling. It was a feeling of being exposed.