Everyone has a plan until you get punched in the face. – Mike Tyson
I lost another two and a half days to migraines again this week. One was kind of expected: a doctor’s appointment that included an hour long drive to and from. We do have our car set up so I can lay down in the back, but the extra movement and the unavoidable upright time just navigating the clinic and waiting my turn adds up quickly. I returned home pretty useless for the rest of the day.
Then a few days later I had a New Pedal Day for the electric uke that I still need to write about. I was having so much fun playing there was no way I was going to stop. Following that day though, we had the one-string experiment workshop for which I took off every string except one on the Sparrow in an attempt to force myself to master the instrument. Well, it seems that the workshop was a little too much and my brain overloaded and again I had no recourse but to sleep off a powerful migraine.
When the going gets tough, the tough watch anime! When I’m feeling sick I don’t typically want to watch anything good, so trashy isekai fits the bill nicely. Maybe Why Does Nobody Remember Me in This World? isn’t technically an isekai, but he does find himself in a new version of his own world, where, spoiler: nobody remembers him. Delightful. It was bland enough to be able to turn off at any time, but interesting enough to not dread every episode. Barely. Would not recommend it unless you’re deep in the time-wasting anime woods.
On the second headache day I made it through As a Reincarnated Aristocrat, I’ll Use My Appraisal Skill to Rise in the World Season 2. If you can’t tell how good it will be from the title alone, your training is lacking! I did enjoy season 1 so I was looking for this, and it certainly delivered the lukewarm isekai soup I was craving. This is one of those where the punchline to every episode is “wow, MC is soooooo talented, and a decent human being who respects others!!” So. It’s good enough to distract from the pain, but not so good that I’ll stay up late to find out what happens in the next episode. Just right.
Anyway, back to the music. This week for my performance set polishing I chose two songs I felt already pretty comfortable singing, and one that needed a good amount of work. I’m starting proper voice lessons from Lahaina Music next week so I wanted to leave the more challenging and delicate stuff to refine until after my knowledge expands. I’ll probably have to revisit these too. Honestly the whole set might need a second pass through to truly get to performance quality. And I’m now singing daily with only one string for now so… eep. But that’s a different story.
It’s the goth set! I’ll be honest, I am a big fan of the goth rock and music on the darker side of the spectrum. I actually could have made a 20 song set out of songs by The Cure and The Smiths alone. But, that’s so commercially kosher, especially not in my bright sunny holiday resort town so I had to compromise. Imagine that, a guy just wailing Morrissey while you’re trying to enjoy the pool on your vacation. Hah!
I hopefully tastefully snuck these into the set because it was important for me to signal that I have an interest in this kind of music. It’s not necessarily stuff associated with the ukulele, and it’s only the tip of the iceberg for all the things I’d like to play. But I’m far from the point where I can get away with playing whatever I want because I know how to make it interesting and engaging. I won’t subject you to my renditions of Joy Division or Siouxie songs… yet.
There’s a growing awareness that there is a higher rate of depression and mental health issues among the musically inclined. I am no exception. It may be about how we are wired, whatever draws us to music may also lead us to a pessimistic outlook. There are many theories attempting to explain why and wherefore, but for the point is that as a musician, if you’re feeling down or things seem hopeless, you are not alone. And what better way to show that than indulge in the misery with waves of melancholy sound! I’m partial to the idea that studying music forces one to adopt a holistic approach to understanding, and when you apply this approach to the world, it’s hard to ignore that it’s kind of a terrible place.
Even before I became disabled I had a long history of fighting against depression. And I gave in to the resignation of despair for many years when all my hopes and dreams and plans for the future vanished. Having the rug pulled from under your feet by a random malady isn’t the kind of thing you can really prepare for. But languishing gets boring after a time, and if we’re lucky we find a way out of the hole. It’s all peaks and valleys. You’re either facing a challenging climb, or sliding down after an accomplishment. If it’s all the same, I might as well sing.
There is a light that never goes out by The Smiths
I suppose I could call this a theme song from my younger years. Growing up in a small town on a remote island, I could only imagine what it would be like to have the option to go see live music that I liked being performed. When I was in college, I played in an indie rock band, and we went out to make music and see life every chance we got. I really like Morresy’s overbearing angst and the compelling ambiguity to the lyrics. And more than anything, this song directly references truck-kun, the unsung catalyst of many an isekai. So of course I had to bring this one out.
Really though, a lot of parts of this song resonate with me quite strongly. The idea of being so enthralled in an experience with someone else that I wouldn’t mind if the world ended before the night sounds great. I haven’t found the one to spend the rest of my life with, but I’ve certainly had nights like these. The idea that home is nowhere was another prominent theme for my youth. I was never truly unwelcome at home, but I probably wouldn’t have willingly chosen to come back under most circumstances. Finally, I interpret the ending refrain (and title of the song) in a couple of different ways. On one hand, it could be saying that the lights of the music venues never go out – that there is always hope for a good time out there somewhere. On another it could refer to the light of the soul, the spark that survives reincarnation, or the love between lovers who get hit by a bus. I doubt Morrissey was an isekai fan (especially back then), but if the shoe fits!
From a musical perspective the biggest challenge was getting the order of verses properly aligned. This is another one of those ones where the lyrics are relatively similar throughout, but the slight variances have big impacts on the meaning. I also purposefully ignore Marr’s approach to the song because I’m under no illusion that I could replicate that vibe alone on a uke. Maybe someday if I incorporate backing tracks and synths into my show. Truth be told, I’m somewhat more influenced by a cover done by Braid, an early midwest emo band that I’m quite fond of.
All in all this was a softball of a song since I had most of the lyrics and chords memorized from long ago. Just needed a bit of polishing. There was a bit of attention paid toward expressing the emotions visually as well as sonically. And an attempt to make crooning about getting killed by a ten ton truck not too cringy. Of all the songs by The Smiths I’ve learned to play, this seemed the most popular and least niche, so it won. If you like The Smiths, and you like my version, I like you!
Enjoy the Silence by Depeche Mode
There’s not as much backstory to this song, I mostly just like it. Well, I am a synth and synthpop enjoyer. But I’m as much of a KMFDM fan as I am of Depeche Mode. And again, I don’t really feel like singing some of the darker songs I know from them by the poolside. As an early millennial, I never really got to experience a true goth club scene, so all I really know of the legacy is how I feel about the music. I wanted a bit of a dancy song, and I felt my voice matched the natural pitch and timbre of this song, so it was kind of another fun softball for me.
You can hear I also don’t really even attempt to replicate the synth leads. Instead I simplify the picking and choose to use a busy strumming style to try to capture that driving dance beat. I actually do experiment a little with an uneven strum to try to add a subtle depth instead of breaking into a proper solo, but I’m not actually sure how effective it is. And I know I got it backwards: There is a light that never goes out ends with a fade out of the refrain, this song just fades with an instrumental. But whatever. I do what I like.
Lovesong – The Cure
There are many songs by The Cure that I’ve learned and enjoy playing, but again for the sake of appealing to the legions of my adoring poolside fans, I had to go with one of the most well known and least angsty songs. Honestly I had half the heart to do this in an upbeat island reggae style like how I approach “Boys Don’t Cry” but you know, sometimes it’s good to be serious. If the timing ever feels right I am actually interested in doing a whole Cure/Smiths set someday. I’m vaguely aware of some issue between the two bands or something, but given Morrisey’s famous attitude, that’s not really surprising.
The first two songs were softballs because this was the beast of the week. I figured that putting time into working this one out early means I’ll have more time to really polish it up by the end of the exercise. For this one I actually wrote out a whole (relatively simple) fingerstyle arrangement of it to help inform how I wanted to do the instrumental half of the song. These musical themes are worth learning and including in my version. I did skip writing out the solo section though because… I am weak.
Lyrically it was a little tricky to place all the words in the right place, but I came up with some little memory tricks to help:
First, while rattling through the only words that are different in each verse, I noticed that the variance in the second verse sounded kind of… Chinese. You make me feel like I am young/fun again. I’m half Chinese and appreciate a good chuckle, so this is now an inside joke for me to memorize the second verse (young/yung is a common Chinese last name, and fun means noodle, i.e. chow fun).
Then for the last verse we’re free and clean, and for some reason clean comes second which gives it a sort of emphasis that I found strange. Somehow it feels like putting “clean” last makes it feel more important than “free.” That oddness is the trick to remembering that one. You’d rather be clean than free? Sure why not.
Finally for the first verse it’s just a matter of remembering that “Home” comes before “Whole.” We come home first. Then we’re whole. Have some chinese noodles. We’re free, but more importantly, we’re clean again. I don’t know if it makes any sense, but that’s what works for me to remember it. I didn’t really see any other logical connection between everything to help otherwise.