Thing a Week 36: Not About You Ah, denial. Sometimes it’s the…

Thing a Week 36: Not About You

Ah, denial. Sometimes it’s the only thing that keeps you going. This one cried out for hand claps from start to finish, but I resisted – the first step is admitting you have a problem.

Funny story: while I was recording this, I got a call from the Gin Blossoms. They want their pre-chorus back.

PRESENT DAY JOCO SAYS: Egads, what a mix! The weird, short, roomy reverb on the vocal drives me nuts. Overall it’s just too busy and monolithic – there are some good ideas in there, but they haven’t really been featured in a way that keeps them out of each other’s way. It’s like there are a couple of radios playing in the background, I can’t hear anything. What’s that synth doing in there? Do you want the synth or not?

The song is OK, catchy, not too deep though. The setup and the one-joke-only aspect of it, plus the appearance of the kicker line in the chorus makes it feel to me like a song that you might hear if you were one of those guys who takes song pitches in Nashville. Of course it’s the same logical conundrum presented by Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain,” which means it’s already an idea that’s been done QUITE PROPERLY thank you very much. It sounds to me a little like I was flailing, possibly a bit checked out, busy with other things.

As I recall, the title and the line in the chorus had been with me for a long time, like maybe years. I’m looking around on the blog and in my calendar for that week and can’t find much going on specifically, though likely I was in the midst of PopSci podcasts, preparing to release physical CDs from earlier parts of Thing a Week, and trying to leave time free for all the Summer family stuff that starts to happen this time of year. Just like now in fact (except for the podcasts of course).

I don’t remember (nor do I have good records on) how much money was coming in at this point, but I can tell that it was getting really busy in a lot of areas. There’s a point when first you launch into a bossless existence where you think you’ll never be able to fill up the hours of a day, and early on you don’t. You find stuff to do, and bit by bit it creeps up on you. Eventually you have to start saying No to things because you just don’t have time to do them all, and that’s kind of exciting. Pretty sure that feeling was just arriving for me at this point five years ago. Now I work harder than I ever did when I had a job, and I feel slightly behind and out of control of lots of things at once. On the plus side, I do not have to wear pants.

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