Burnt Offering EP Liner Notes

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Happy Friday and happy Release Day for the Burnt Offering EP! It’s available on all your favorite streaming platforms. What is it, you may ask? Let’s call them variations on a theme. The theme is a song off my first full-length album, Creature Comforts. Let’s explore each version included in the five-song set.

  1. Burnt Offering (Version 1): Originally intended for Creature Comforts, it got left off because…well, I’m not really sure. Maybe we weren’t totally happy with the mix? Maybe my vocals? It’s been a minute, so who can recall. But it’s the first song I ever recorded without an acoustic guitar. Yup, no Martin in this one! Just the G&L ASAT on this one, baby!
  2. Burnt Offering (Version 2): This one did show up on Creature Comforts! I think this song turned out as good as it did all because of Clyde’s mixing; the version I sent him just all the instruments playing all the time, but he took what was there and crafted it into a great piece of songcraft.
  3. Burnt Offering (Demo 1): The original demo for this song had all of the bits that ended up in the final version: all the words are written, all the chords are there, everything is in the correct order and all. But apparently I had not yet designated a chunk of it as a repeating chorus, and the chord changes happen much faster in this version than in any of the others. I must’ve also forgotten I ever did this version because I ended up doing a second demo just a few months later. I find the iterative process of songwriting to be a fascinating thing, so it’s kind of fun to go back and hear what could have been with this song.
  4. Burnt Offering (Demo 2): Speaking of, here’s that second demo. Everything is played in the correct order, correct chord structure and change rhythm, there’s even an actual chorus now! And some lunatic tried to record a very rough, improvised lead part over the whole thing that was ultimately left out of the final versions (though I think I did adopt a little tiny bit of it here and there in Version 1).
  5. Burnt Offering (Fancy Version): So late last year, as he was preparing songs for his own Gray Charlies EP, my brother happened to pick Burnt Offering as one of the songs he wanted to do a new version of. He didn’t tell me anything about it at first, just went about getting his hired musicians to perform their parts so he could assemble them all mad scientist style at the end. The Gray Charlies version does sound really good, even if the way the woman sings it on that one has kinda crept into how I sing it now. But somewhere along the way, the string quartet he hired to perform on the song used my Version 2 as their template, and I am not well-known for being a consistent rhythm keeper. Which means as a track he could use, it was useless – all the other musicians were following a set rhythm and tempo that this strings track did not. It did, however, mean we could come up with this fancy version of the song for me, which I’ve been sitting on for the past, like, five months now. It makes me feel very fancy.

Anyway, there you have it. Thanks as always to Brother Cylde for mixing and mastering all my stuff and managing to make me sound like I might actually know what I’m doing.

Playlist #277

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Happy Monday, folks! Summer is officially over; I’m back at school for teacher in-service this week, which means more meetings than you can shake a stick at (why do you shake a stick at something? I’ve never really understood that adage). Anyway, it’s Monday, so here’s a playlist.

  1. Hozier, “Too Sweet”: It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize this was a Hozier song. It’s good. Has a Mark Ronson feel to it.
  2. The Mountain Goats, “Candlebox”: The latest album from tMG is apparently a song cycle about 90s grunge artists and the alternative music movement of that time period, and this is an excellent example of what Darnielle and Company have cooked up. I dunno that I’d personally want to open for Candlebox for a summer tour, though if they asked I would probably still say “yes.” Not sure their audience is exactly my audience, mind you.
  3. Phoebe Bridgers, “As Above”: A new Phoebe Bridgers album is always cause for celebration. Most of the songs just sort of float by on this record, but this one stuck out in my mind pretty well.
  4. Lord Huron, “Love Like Ghosts”: Even after having listened to it obsessively for several months now, I still find myself coming back to the songs on Strange Trails. This is a great album opener.
  5. Huey Lewis and the News, “I Know What I Like”: I’m a sucker for Huey Lewis and the News. They sound like that band your dad tried to put together back in the mid-90s with his buddies from work, but they mostly sat around in the garage on Saturday nights drinking beers and playing old Lovin’ Spoonful covers. But that’s, like, not a bad thing.
  6. Ma Rainey, “See See the Rider”: One of the OGs singing a song that has come down through the decades until it ended up as 60s rock number.
  7. Sean Watkins, “Let It Fall”: I’m always going to be a sucker for this song. The vocals are plaintive, the guitar work is flawless, and it’s just really damn good.
  8. Blue Mountain, “Bloody 98”: The banjo solo in this song – a song I would deem very unlikely to have a banjo solo – is top-notch and just rips the roof off the building. Love it.
  9. Bruce Springsteen, “Ain’t Good Enough For You”: I always enjoy Bruce’s hard luck stories; this one is very tongue in cheek and far too much fun to be about a relationship you give more than half a damn about.
  10. Them, “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue”: One of the best Dylan covers out there. Can’t top it.

Playlist #276

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Happy Monday, folks! The AC is out at the Wife’s school, which has sent them scrambling home and us to the local library for the day. But playlists don’t care about the temperature!

  1. The Allman Brothers Band, “Midnight Rider”: All these years later, this song still kicks a serious amount of ass. Those harmonies in the chorus? They send chills down my spine.
  2. Badfinger, “Day After Day”: It’s always a bit of a tragedy, this band. They had so much potential, and it ended up being (mostly) wasted by managerial incompetence (or, y’know, malfeasance).
  3. Bruce Cockburn, “Lovers In A Dangerous Time”: I heard a Barenaked Ladies cover of this song the other week, and it just…lacked any kind of oomph. The line “You gotta kick at the darkness ’til it bleeds daylight” is still stone-cold badass, though.
  4. Tom Waits, “Get Behind The Mule”: The title for this song apparently came from famous bluesman Robert Johnson’s father, who famously said, “the only thing wrong with Robert Johnson is that he doesn’t want to get behind the mule in the morning and plow.” And that thought now resides rent-free in my head.
  5. Tom Petty, “You And Me”: I’ve softened considerably on latter-day Tom Petty as I’ve grown older, especially The Last DJ and Highway Companion. This one comes from the former, though I think I can be forgiven for originally thinking it came from the latter. It just has that solo style, that easy-going, laid-back tone that so much of his best work possessed.
  6. Queen, “’39”: A folky little slice of…I dunno, colonialism? It’s less endearing than I originally thought now that I give it more thought. Hmm.
  7. Monsters of Folk, “Say Please”: Speaking of a group that’s supposed to be folky, there’s these guys. I wonder if any of them ever went on to make anything else?
  8. The English Beat, “Save It For Later”: A stone-cold classic. I feel like the horn section is what really holds the song together and gives it that certain something that sets it above many of the English Beat’s peers.
  9. Billy Preston, “Nothing From Nothing”: That Billy Preston could release songs with such emotion and energy and feel as…trapped as he apparently felt still resonates with me.
  10. Jefferson Airplane, “Somebody To Love”: How did the band that released songs like this, “White Rabbit,” and “Volunteers” eventually morph into the band that released “We Built This City?” It’s one of life’s great mysteries.

Playlist #275

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Happy Monday! I’m back from the beach, a little more tanned and a little less rested than I’d prefer. But that’s okay, because being chronically exhausted is just part of my brand. Here’s a playlist.

  1. Steve Miller Band, “Mercury Blues”: My dad (whose birthday is tomorrow; happy birthday, dad!) owns a early-60s Mercury Comet. It’s his current fixer-upper, the car he is working on restoring from basically the ground up. The song is a banger.
  2. Stone Temple Pilots, “Trippin’ On A Hole In A Paper Heart”: By this point (1996), Stone Temple Pilots and many of their grunge peers had already abandoned the grunge label for a broader alternative approach. It pays off in spades here.
  3. The Heavy Heavy, “Go Down River”: The latest in my “heard it in a restaurant” playlist does not really disappoint. It’s a country song, as far as I can tell, but a pretty decent one.
  4. Noah Kahan, “The Great Divide”: Another “hear it in a restaurant” tune. It’s not bad. Is it as good as any of the better songs off Stick Season? Eh. It’s good, but not exactly great. Hard to really put my finger on it.
  5. Jeremie Albino, “Across The Hall”: Guy reminds me a lot of John Fullbright, and that’s a style and musician we could use a lot more of, I think.
  6. The Shins, “Gone For Good”: The world needs more songs with pedal steel and a plot about divorce and leaving your wedding band on the train tracks for the train to flatten. It’s just a fact.
  7. The White Stripes, “The Denial Twist”: You know things will get interesting if (1) Bob Dylan or (2) Jack White gets behind a piano for a song. This does not mean I endorse the whole “I’m going to spend the whole concert at the piano” Bob Dylan we’ve seen over the past decade or so.
  8. Portugal. The Man, “Once Was One”: I think it’s about evolution? I dunno, there’s a line in the chorus about monkeys, and I can’t really get past that for whatever reason.
  9. The Coral, “Dreaming Of You”: I watched the hell out of Scrubs back in the day, and have enjoyed what I’ve seen of the latest revival season. I still remember this song pretty much verbatim from back then. Thanks, Scurbs.
  10. Blur, “Song 2”: I have this thing I do where I recite the lyrics to this song as if I were reading a Shakespearean sonnet, all slow and sonorous and full of self-import. The “whoo-hoo”s are my favorite part. The Wife absolutely hates this and rarely lets me get that far before she shuts it down.

Playlist #274

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Happy Monday Wednesday! I’m currently at Virginia Beach for a week of family fun. Here’s some songs to rock away the days in the sun.

  1. Lord Huron (featuring Phoebe Bridgers), “The Night We Met”: I love this song and I love the addition of Phoebe Bridgers’ vocals.
  2. Chuck Prophet (featuring Qiensave), “First Came the Thunder”: I dug his collaboration with this band. Their styles are different, but there’s enough overlap for a happy medium style of thing here.
  3. Ben Folds, “Not the Same”: if I ever climb a tree at someone’s party and come down as an evangelist for…well, anything, please sit on my head until the urge passes.
  4. Iron & Wine, “Call It Dreaming”: I kinda love how the coda to this song reminds me of the Elton John song “Levon.” Dunno why or how, it just does.
  5. Pearl Jam, “Hail Hail”: for when you really need to get the blood pumping and the juices flowing, accept no substitutes! Though I’m pretty sure by the point they recorded this song, it’d be weird and inaccurate to refer to Pearl Jam as a grunge band.
  6. Sara Bareilles, “Armor”: I still really dig this song, even…geez, eight years later?! Why does time keep moving forward like that?
  7. Josh Ritter, “Golden Age of Radio”: I love playing this song on the guitar, even if the low notes are really damn hard to sing well. I still try to sing ‘em.
  8. Lizzo, “Good As Hell”: I know Lizzo’s been in her “Bad Bitch” era for a bit now, but I still dig the vibes of this song and will sing along whenever it comes on.
  9. Greg Felden, “Incoming”: I like this song a lot, and spent a good four hours of a road trip home from Oklahoma only listening to this song on repeat turned up about as loud as my ears could handle it. Would do it again.
  10. Van Morrison, “Into the Mystic”: I had this song on the playlist when I put it together Sunday evening (yes, I started planning ahead for this week, and still didn’t get it done before I left). Then this morning someone posted a version Glen Hansard did of it live acoustic, and it just knocked me right out. Not long after, I learned he’d died in a motorcycle accident. Life is short, folks.

Playlist #273

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Happy Monday, folks! Just a week until I head to Virginia Beach. Also, it’s the Wife’s birthday this weekend! Hurray!

  1. The Gray Charlies, “Mill Street, 1am”: I’m still super-proud of the lyrics I wrote for this one, and the singer knocked it out of the park. Also, Clyde’s guitar solo fits perfectly. Go listen.
  2. Matt Berninger, “Martini Me Fatso”: I love this song and hate its title. The title is awful. The song itself, on the other hand, rocks. It’s nice that he’s putting out so many singles lately. I hope he keeps it up.
  3. Soundgarden, “Blow Up The Outside World”: A classic of the genre.
  4. Nashville Teens, “Tobacco Road”: Much like the Holy Roman Empire, the name is a complete misnomer. These guys aren’t from Nashville and they definitely aren’t teens. But it’s a pretty solid slice of British Invasion rock.
  5. Justin Townes Earle, “Flint City Shake It”: A good ol’ rock’n’roll song about how Flint became a bit of a Rust Belt wreck. And it doesn’t even get into the water crisis there.
  6. Golden Smog, “Another Fine Day”: I’m a sucker for good supergroups. And one that includes members of Wilco, the Jayhawks, and Soul Asylum? Too good.
  7. fun., “Some Nights”: A night of heavy drinking seems like a bad idea when you’re in your twenties; as you reach my age, it seems like a good way to drink yourself to death.
  8. Drive-By Truckers, “Goddamn Lonely Love”: A great early Jason Isbell tune from his time with the Truckers.
  9. Coldplay, “The Scientist”: Remember when Coldplay were a band that played instruments? Good times.
  10. Andrew Bird, “Pulaski At Night”: This one’s on here entirely because my Wife loves it. And it is a damn good song. I understand why she loves it so much.

Playlist #272

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Happy Monday! I’m currently at the beach, and genius that I am I left my laptop at home. So, this is all being done on my phone. Please forgive any glaring spelling or punctuation errors in this week’s playlist.

  1. Toby Keith and Willie Nelson, “Beer for my Horses”: It’s a tale as old as time: we’re gonna be out there fighting the good fight, so my men need whiskey and my horses apparently need beer.
  2. The Ides of March, “Vehicle”: A nice little slice of soul that I learned of courtesy of a band my dad’s cousin plays in. It’s a damn fine song.
  3. The SteelDrivers, “Heaven Sent”: Another song learned of courtesy of Cousin David. Apparently written (at least in part) by Chris Stapleton? You learn something new every day.
  4. The National, “Lucky You”: A beautiful and melancholy song that just reminds me that life is short and you should tell folks you love them. I’m not sure that’s even subtext to the song, more just what it makes me feel.
  5. Blues Traveler, “Hook”: I’m someday going to put together a playlist of songs about writing songs, and this one will go on there.
  6. The Georgia Satellites, “Keep Your Hands to Yourself”: Yeah, the old saying goes why buy the cow when you get the milk for free, but these guys really belabor the point. This song is the classic rock equivalent to Beyoncé’s “All the Single Ladies.”
  7. The English Beat, “Save it for Later”: I’m not generally a fan of the 80s or their bands, but these guys are pretty damn good. Production values feel very much of their time, but the song itself is timeless.
  8. The Breeders, “Cannonball”: A stone-cold 90s classic. If you don’t like that bass line, check to make sure you still have a pulse.
  9. The Both, “Milwaukee”: There are few things in the world that cannot be made better with the combination of Ted Leo and Aimee Mann.
  10. Johnny Rivers, “Seventh Son”: Still absolutely adore the live version of this song. It just kicks a tremendous amount of ass and doesn’t let up for a second.

Playlist #271

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Happy Monday, folks! It’s beach week – we’re heading down to Crystal Beach, TX, to meet up with my family and hang out in a beach house for a few days. But that’s not until Thursday. Monday through Wednesday is still teaching small children how to create and edit videos, and right now it’s time for a playlist!

  1. Bryan Andrews, “Backwoods Backwards”: I kept seeing this song in particular pop up in reels on Facebook for the better part of a week, and damn if it’s not a banger. Dude’s trying to reclaim outlaw country from…well, whatever the hell country music as turned in to. Bootlicking, mostly.
  2. Phoebe Bridgers, “Motion Sickness”: “Emotional motion sickness” is such a good turn of phrase that it almost makes me sick that I wasn’t the one who wrote it.
  3. Matchbox 20, “Mad Season”: There’s just something about these ’90s alt-rockers that I keep coming back to time and again.
  4. Josh Ritter, “Getting Ready To Get Down”: When you discover that you’re probably a lesbian and your parents decide to send you to a Bible college
  5. The Mountain Goats, “Training Montage”: I honestly wish this was the song that played during the training montage in Rocky IV rather than whatever Survivor song they played instead.
  6. The National, “Wake Up Your Saints”: I always love the horn section in this song. I should use more horn sections in my own music.
  7. Dan Auerbach, “Trouble Weighs A Ton”: A part of me will alwayw love songs that are just a vocal and an acoustic guitar.
  8. Sting, “Fragile”: The emotion in this song always gets to me. It’s so sad and forlorn and somber and I really just want to sit and cry when I listen to it.
  9. Golden Smog, “V”: This song, on the other hand, is so uptempo that it’s hard not to sing along when it comes on. God bless Golden Smog.
  10. Van Morrison, “Wonderful Remark”: I learned this one on the guitar a few years ago. Easy song to play, and really great to sing.

Playlist #270

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Happy Monday, folks! It’s the Fourth of July this weekend! I started the summer job late last week, and man is it strange. I’ve never even seen Roblox, let alone played it, but I still had to walk a bunch of small kids through how to create various games using the platform. It was…interesting. Not something I’m going to take up in my spare time, mind, but interesting. Here’s a playlist.

  1. Whitney Houston, “I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)”: I’m not usually one for ’80s R&B, but this song hits something deep and primal in my brain and doesn’t let go. It’s great.
  2. Bryan Andrews, “Yeehaw”: Remember when country music was anti-establishment and outlaw? Bryan Andrews remembers. He’s carrying on the tradition of guys like Merle Haggard, Kris Kristofferson, and Willie Nelson. He’s Johnny Cash flipping off the camera.
  3. Nanseera, “Seattle”: She’s from Uganda, but she spent a long time traveling across the United States and wrote a whole album about it. It’s pretty great.
  4. The National, “Sorrow”: Remember when they performed this song for a full six hours straight? Man, that was awesome. I could listen to it for six hours straight no problem.
  5. Paul McCartney, “Hope of Deliverance”: I feel like there’s at least one great song on every McCartney album, and this song is absolutely fantastic.
  6. Feist & Ben Gibbard, “Train Song”: A downbeat, somber song ostensibly about trains? Y’know, sometimes I don’t pay close attention to the lyrics or what a song’s theme actually is, but I still really dig the song. This is one of those instances.
  7. Rufus Wainwright, “Going To A Town”: I love this song. The rhythm of it, the piano, the way Rufus sings it…it’s just a perfect song, are there are too few of those in the world.
  8. Procol Harum, “A Whiter Shade Of Pale”: Speaking of perfect songs, I think this might be one, too. That organ just gets me every time.
  9. The Dave Clark Five, “Bits And Pieces”: How many other bands are named after the drummer? I mean, other than whatever Ringo does these days.
  10. Calexico, “Sunken Waltz”: I love the guitar riff at the beginning of this song. The whole song is great, really.

Playlist #269

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Happy Monday, folks! It’s officially summer (both in that the summer solstice occurred yesterday and I’m finally no longer in school), and that means most teachers are sitting curled up in a ball dissociating for a few days before they jump into whatever summer job they’re doing. I’m working at a summer camp that’s running out of Michelle’s school (though there is no official connection between the two other than the camp is using the Sycamore School’s location to host the camp). All that being said, here’s a playlist to set the mood.

  1. Roosevelt, “Everywhere”: It’s a Fleetwood Mac cover! That really doesn’t do anything all that different than the original. Which always makes me wonder, why cover a song if you’re not going to do anything different with it?
  2. Modest Mouse, “Missing The Boat”: That drum machine beat that kicks the song off always gets to me for some reason. I just really dig it.
  3. Margaret Glaspy, “Jesus, Etc.”: I’ve been compiling a list of songs I want played at my funeral, and this one currently tops that list. Ir’a just so forlorn and heartbroken that it fits perfectly for something like a funeral.
  4. The Mountain Goats, “Up The Wolves”: I like The Sunset Tree. As a transition between the boombox era of the band the fleshed out, full band that appears on Tallahassee and later records, it’s a neat look at how John Darnielle came to grips with working directly with other musicians. Also, it’s just a great song.
  5. The Avett Brothers, “Die Die Die”: Emotionalism remains my favorite Avett Brothers album, and songs like this one – with the harmonies and the stomping rhythm – help exemplify why.
  6. B.B. King, “The Thrill Is Gone”: You can’t beat the king of the blues, and this is hands-down his best song. I still marvel at the idea of adding strings to a blues song. It’s great.
  7. Bruce Springsteen, “Reason To Believe (Electric Nebraska)”: The electric Nebraska demos sound exactly what you think Nebraska would sound like if all the songs were played with bass and drums added in. That said, this song still hits right if you ask me. The rhythm section gives it some muscle and some menace.
  8. Genesis, “Man On The Corner”: I know Phil Collins Genesis is often dismissed as pop pablum, especially when you get to Invisible Touch, but I always really dug the stuff they did when he was the leader of the band. And this song shows that he could ask some big questions about the nature of society and how we treat one another. Also, it’s got a good hook.
  9. HAIM, “Now It’s Time”: Why not take a U2 Pop song (specifically, “Numb”) and reuse it to do something completely different?
  10. The Lemonheads, “Take It Easy”: Another cover to round things out. Again, doesn’t really do much of anything all that different from the original version, though at least Evan Dando’s voice is different enough from Glen Frey’s that it’s got that going for it.