Thing a Week 24: Don’t Talk to Strangers Yes: the Rick…

Thing a Week 24: Don’t Talk to Strangers

Yes: the Rick Springfield song. This recording is based on an arrangement I once did live at Little Gray Books with my friend Phoebe. I heard a recording of it recently and my voice sounded terrible, but I liked the arrangement a lot so I thought I’d flesh it out a little more and give it to you nice people.

PRESENT DAY JOCO SAYS: This marks 6 months into Thing a Week (but only 24 songs due to the two weeks when I failed to make anything). So terse! What was happening in my life? No idea. I was just looking through blog posts from around then, nothing interesting. Nothing on my calendar. Was I even there? Happy JoCo is kind of a boring JoCo I guess.

This was a fun cover to do – I don’t think you can do sad versions of up tempo pop songs forever, but it sure would feel great. I cringe a little about the vocals now, it’s so damned high, I really should have dealt with it a different way. Changed the key or something. I remember recording that B section a million times, screaming into the microphone trying to keep it under control, coughing blood for a few minutes and then trying again. If I had one musical wish it would be to extend my range a little higher – on a good day I can hit a short chirpy G as long as I don’t have to linger on it, but it sure would be nice to be able to belt it out up there. Then I could do Journey covers…

You can find more info on this song, a store where you can listen to everything, and also other stuff at jonathancoulton.com