Do you remember the story about the canals in Venice during the pandemic? The story was that after decades of pollution, the waters had started to clear, and you could see below the water's surface.
I'm not sure if that's a true story, but It is an excellent metaphor for my own creative life. During the pandemic, two events happened: My hard drive on my ZOOM went bad, and I started to unbox notebooks and memorabilia from the past 40 years. Among those were several notebooks from my undergraduate years at Eastern Kentucky University. They contained fragments of ideas- song titles, poems, and set lists.
The songs on the "Wistful Girl" e.p. represent some of these ideas finally fully realized. When you lose a significant amount of work in any medium, It brings home the urgency of getting these ideas completed and out to the world.
"Wistful Girl"- was a song I routined with my band in the mid to late 1980's- The Bam Bam Club. I never fully completed the lyrics, and the band couldn't create an arrangement. The Smiths probably influenced it, but this version sounds like a Go-Betweens song (a band I didn't hear of until the 2000s). Dig the crunching leaves tambourine sound!!
"Totally Bare" sprang from a conversation with Archer Prewitt about wanting to be a songwriting duo like Difford and Tilbrook from Squeeze. I didn't have any original lyrics, but I remembered the hook or chorus, which I came up with on his Casio keyboard at Admirals Landing one Christmas break. The lyrics were a combo of a draft I wrote on a plane to Arizona and in the aftermath of an underwhelming and weird beach vacation with an ex-girlfriend.
"I never spoke her name" was originally a song called "Everyone Know Your Name." I had a Tenpole Tudor-inspired tune but no real lyrics. The few that survived were from an Elvis Costello-style moody Vouyer perspective.
"Carolyn Maybe" was a Bam Bam Club song called "Z-flat." Sometimes, I would write a tune that I wasn't capable of playing and singing. I have a few clumsy versions of "z-flat." With experience and playing to a click track, I was able to craft this Roxy/Bryan Ferry-style arrangement.
P.S. This is just the first batch. I have another 4-6 songs that will crop up on the next installment.