Roll With The Punches

Factoid #1 - most of you wouldn’t know this, nor should you, but back in like 2014 I started a small hashtag for Dawes called #songsjustforinstagram w a bunch of little pieces that were about a minute or less. I tried to have every idea feel like a full song - with a beginning, middle and end. I didn’t want it to just sound like I was floating around. There’s a Substack post somewhere in here with all the recordings I could salvage. I couldn’t find them all though. One of them that I couldn’t find was the original melodic idea and progression for Roll With The Punches. So it turns out silly exercises like this can garner results once in a while.

Factoid #2 - I was reading a lot of Delillo in this time. I especially feel Underworld in this song. He was the authorial voice looming over this whole record for me. I got so locked into him I couldn’t read anything else for a while. The only other time that happened was when I was writing tunes for Nothing Is Wrong and I couldn’t stop reading Joan Didion. I don’t mind sharing this info with you because I like to think my writerly voice is still my own, albeit inspired by these all timers. All that to say, I think getting lost in an author (or any creator in a different medium than your own), can be deeply rewarding and really give a welcome boost to your output.

So, there’s a lot of recordings to share here.

• A soundcheck demo featuring me searching for a verse melody. You’ll hear some words from what ended up being in When The Tequila Runs Out in this one.

• A piano demo with a distractingly squeaky sustain pedal of just the first verse and chorus

• A piano demo featuring a whole bunch of different lyrics that make it quite a different

• An acoustic guitar demo recorded a few days before we recorded the final version

Recordings below! Talk soon! I hope everyone is doing well out there in these wild times!