Formation of the Song, Volume One
More No More
In my quest to document my songs over the years there is a noticeable evolution in the sonic qualities of my home-recorded projects spanning from Formation of the Song (2001) to All Is Well (2017). When I listen to them today, it’s nearly impossible to hear them without noticing everything I would do differently. Moments of wincing and laughing at myself are especially abundant when listening to recordings from the first few years. The attention I paid to the fine details of tracks were typically obsessive and excessive. The “musicality” and “sound engineering” were clumsily and crudely executed. Nothing, however, is as excruciating (and hilarious) to listen to as the vocal performances in those earliest recordings.
These days, I can’t help but take with a grain of salt any compliment given to me regarding my singing. Recently, my bandmate and friend of nearly thirty years asked me when it was that I took voice lessons. I immediately assumed she was making a half-joke as a way of complimenting a vocal performance I had delivered during rehearsal. I soon realized that she was genuinely curious.
I’ve never taken a voice lesson. To me, this is a conclusion that can be drawn with no difficulty. However, my aforementioned friend is a tremendous singer and an Enneagram One1 and so I’m going to receive her complimentary inquiry with less suspicion than I would most.
I don’t think that I ever considered myself a particularly good singer. But I’ve always loved singing - in the shower, in the car, mowing the lawn, at camp, in church, just about anywhere songs were being played. When I started writing songs, I was clumsily trying to emulate artists who I admired. My teachers were my record collection, the radio, my family. I collected the ingredients I found essential, scrambled them over low heat, and served up something that hopefully wouldn’t give anyone salmonella.
I still don’t know if I succeeded. There have been times that I have felt physically nauseous while listening to my recorded voice doing what at the time I would have considered “singing.”
I treated my voice as a bullhorn for years until it dawned on me that, with a little discipline, I could maybe be a better singer by thinking of it more as an instrument. Now I’ve never been a very skilled musician on any instrument, but I’d been slowly learning to play the guitar with somewhat more delicacy than a coked-up baboon. Could I not do the same with my voice? Could I pay closer attention to what my voice was doing, and move up and down the scale with intent rather than aimlessly warbling?
Because many of my favorite artists often don’t fit traditional standards of what makes a “good singer,” I think I used to shrug at the idea of honing my singing voice. What I failed to understand was that those artists learned how to use their voices, conventional or not, in a way that was inseparable from their artistry. My mistake was trying too hard to not sound conventional rather than paying attention and discovering my own voice and learning how to use it.
I share all of this as a prelude to say that by learning to use my voice as my primary musical instrument, I was able to reclaim and embrace a song of mine that was once so significant and yet perpetually vexing. I could point to ways I was dissatisfied with the lyrics or the music. But I think that what I disliked the most about the song “No More” was how I sang it. Learning to pay attention to and control my voice I was finally able to let this song exist on its own terms, more or less as it was originally written.
And now, let us take a journey together through the myriad revisions of the song “No More” starting with Formation of the Song…
No More - Formation of the Song (2001)
This is the version that was included as the third track on my first full-length CD titled Formation of the Song (FotS)…
It was recorded on the audio software, Cakewalk GuitarWorks. There’s a whole lot going on here. I recorded at least two acoustic guitar tracks, an electric guitar, some dissonant keys in the background (provided by the same Yamaha keyboard that delivers that sick drum loop), an incessantly wailing harmonica, and layers of oh-so-pitchy vocals. Overall, it is quite a harrowing affair. The layers are caked on so thick, yet it still sounds so very thin. Chalk it up to the work of a guy who had no bass guitar and no idea what he was doing.
Also, this thing is OVER FIVE MINUTES LONG!?!? This thing might have benefitted from some editing. It occurs to me that I may have had some difficulty telling myself no and trimming the fat from these often indulgent tracks.
I would learn to let some things go by the wayside much later. After several years, and a handful of attempted revisions, this original recipe, despite its missteps, would still prove to hold the true spirit of the song.
No More - Formation of the Song Revisited (2002)
In 2002, the year following FotS, I had recorded three more albums worth of songs. Having picked up a few tricks (and a bass guitar) along the way, I was now properly dissatisfied with the sound of that first set of recordings. I made a go at re-recording (and in some cases reimagining) the songs completely. Of the fourteen songs featured on FotS, only one inexplicably did not receive the treatment (I guess the project was scrapped before “Post Script” was recorded). “No More” received the biggest overhaul…
I find it curious that the re-recording of “No More” was arranged so differently from the original while the other FotS tracks remained relatively identical with a slightly more robust frequency EQ. Over the years I would later revisit, rearrange, and rewrite some of those other tracks, too (stay tuned). But for some reason, within a year of writing and recording “No More,” I was already discontented with it. And yet I worked on it to try to make it something I was satisfied with. The song still meant something to me. So I slightly reworked the lyrics. I changed up the rhythm and the melody of the verses and chorus (although I did keep the basic structure of the bridge). The vocals are no less of a mess than in the original, a detail that may be what they most have in common.
I put a lot of time into the FotS Revisited recordings, but eventually got bored with the project. I had been writing plenty of new songs, and in the end I was more interested in putting energy behind those rather than a slightly different version of something I’d already recently subjected folks to.
No More - demo, circa 2006
A few years later, I attempted another treatment, changing up the rhythm, melody, etc. Imagined it as a blazing punk rock song. Never quite made it work though…
No More - demo, circa 2007
The following year, I went the other direction. Musically, I was just ripping off “Handshake Drugs” by Wilco. I clearly had not yet properly worked out a melody as the following vocal performance will clearly (and painfully) illustrate…
No More - ukulele demo, circa 2010
By 2010 I had been regularly writing songs with the assistance of a baritone ukulele. Naturally, I thought maybe this song, which had hounded and confounded me for ten years, might find new life floating along the lazy strumming of nylon strings.
I decidedly did not.
I would not return to this song again for another thirteen years. But when I did it was on the song’s own terms, using my imperfect instrument to deliver the most adequate performance possible.
Thanks for joining me on this short trip through the formation of the song.
xoxo, JDR
I have learned that the Enneagram Ones in my life do not bullshit me.