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July 31, 2006

Lisa on “Mix 97.1” Part 3

Lisa was recently on a local Columbus, Ohio radio station with D.J. Dave James. Dave was kind enough to send me this third installment of what is so far a three-part series of interviews on Foster Care.

Lisa Mix 97.1 Part 3.mp3 (18.5MB)

You can listen to the first two parts of the interview here.

Posted by Nathan Dickson at 01:24 PM | Comments (0)

July 10, 2006

Have You Seen My Sunshine?

Almost exactly five years ago, I came up with a new tune and never developed lyrics or a melody for it. I recorded it and pretty much shelved it for later use. The fact that I just left it to languish has always bugged me. About a year ago, I began re-listening to what I considered version five of the recording with the intent of pinning down a melody that would work. The problem with this endeavor was that my brain was so accustomed to the instrumental version, it did not adapt quickly to a version with a melody -- one of the pitfalls of letting it sit for so long.

However, after about year of tossing it around in my head, I had what was to be a good portion of the melody as of a few months ago, especially the chorus portion, which I thought was very good. The melody for the verse was still tenuous and up in the air.

Since I no longer had the separate recording elements because I am an idiot and accidentally misplaced them a few years ago, I would have to either re-record the song or just sing on top of the original mix -- I chose the latter. This past weekend, I finally had the nerve to at least record myself performing some melodic ramblings along with version five of the recording, prompted mostly by the fact that I had just pinned down a perfect melody for the "skipping along" portion -- vastly superior to what I had last month.

Anyway, after mixing down a non-word version with random vocal sounds similar to what the final might have (for some reason, I realized right away that the hook should probably end with an "-ine" sound), I decided to work out some temporary lyrics off the top off my head -- sort of "whatever came into my head". The working title was Lisa2, so I decided to make it about my wife Lisa, but not necessarily by name. The harmonies came quite by accident while recording both the non-word and worded versions (typical creation by accident, where you just sing the first thing that comes into your head).

I liked the temporary lyrics so much that I decided to just stick with them. I also used some very powerful audio plug-ins to re-pitch and re-time song, making it about ten percent faster and one whole step lower in pitch. That made it both catchier and easier for me to sing. One last touch -- I deleted the bridge because it was an afterthought to the original recording and I never liked it. At this point, the only stuctural element I would change is to put the line ending with "wine" after the line ending with "fine", essentially exchanging them.

So, here it is, along with lyrics. Feel free to comment.

Have You Seen My Sunshine?
Copyright 2006 Nathan Dickson. All rights reserved worldwide.

(Intro Chorus)
Where's the girl of mine?
Have you seen my sunshine?
Skippin' right along and feelin' the wind blow

She's the girl who can make you feel that
Everything is sun and true
Out there you'll find her
Just beyond the thunder
Sun is so high and the sky so blue

(Chorus)
Where's the girl of mine?
Have you seen my sunshine?
Skippin' right along just feelin' the wind blow
Sippin' on a glass o'wine
Tell'er that she's mighty fine
Skippin' right along just feelin' the wind blow

She's the girl who will make you think that
Every other girl is gone
She holds you closely
And you know that mostly
Everything about her is just for you

Chorus

Save your day for the girl who makes you
Sing your song, but just for her
Yeah, she'll be here soon
Yeah, I'll sing her this tune
Then she will know that I want her sooner

Chorus

Posted by Nathan Dickson at 06:55 PM | Comments (1)